ow of their lofty
summits. One night, during this second visit of mine to the hotel, the
mood to ramble came upon me, and, unable to resist the seductive
thought of a midnight stroll across the bracken-covered hills, I
borrowed a latchkey, and, armed with a flask of whisky and a thick
stick, plunged into the moonlit night. The keen, heather-scented air
acted like a tonic--I felt younger and stronger than I had felt for
years, and I congratulated myself that my friends would hardly know me
if they saw me now, as I swung along with the resuscitated stride of
twenty years ago. The landscape for miles around stood out with
startling clearness in the moonshine, and I stopped every now and then
to drink in the beauties of the glittering mountain-ranges and silent,
glimmering tarns. Not a soul was about, and I found myself, as I loved
to be, the only human element in the midst of nature. Every now and
then a dark patch fluttered across the shining road, and with a weird
and plaintive cry, a night bird dashed abruptly from hedge to hedge,
and seemingly melted into nothingness. I quitted the main road on the
brow of a low hill, and embarked upon a wild expanse of moor, lavishly
covered with bracken and white heather, intermingled with which were
the silvery surfaces of many a pool of water. For some seconds I stood
still, lost in contemplating the scenery,--its utter abandonment and
grand sense of isolation; and inhaling at the same time long and deep
draughts of the delicious moorland air, unmistakably impregnated now
with breaths of ozone. My eyes wandering to the horizon, I detected,
on the very margin of the moorland, a dense clump of trees, which I
instantly associated with the spinney in my old friend Mr. Porter's
story, and, determining that the renowned spinney should be my goal, I
at once aimed for it, vigorously striking out along the path which I
thought would be most likely to lead to it. Half an hour's brisk
walking brought me to my destination, and I found myself standing
opposite a granite wall which my imagination had no difficulty in
identifying with the wall so well described by Mr. Porter. Removing
the briars and gorse prickles which left little of my stockings whole,
I went up to the wall, and, measuring it with my body, found it was a
good foot taller than I. This would mean rather more climbing than I
had bargained for. But the pines--the grim silence of their slender
frames and gently swaying summits--fasci