y abode of quietness. Here, on one of my earlier
excursions, I came unexpectedly to a bridge, and on the farther side of
the bridge to a tidy house and garden; and in the garden were several
pear-trees, with fruit on them! Still more to my surprise, here was a
little shop. The keeper of it had also the agency of some insurance
company,--so a signboard informed the passer-by. As for his stock in
trade,--sole leather, dry goods, etc.,--that spoke for itself. I stepped
inside the door, but he was occupied with an account book, and when at
last he looked up there was no speculation in his eyes. Possibly he had
sold something the day before, and knew that no second customer could be
expected so soon. We exchanged the time of day,--not a very valuable
commodity hereabout,--and I asked him a question or two touching the
hollow, and especially "the village," of which I had heard a rumor that
it lay somewhere in this neighborhood. He looked bewildered at the
word,--he hardly knew what I could mean, he said; but with a little
prompting he recollected that a few houses between this point and North
Truro (there used to be more houses than now, but they had been removed
to other towns,--some of them to Boston!) were formerly called "the
village." I left him to his ledger, and on passing his house I saw that
he was a dealer in grain as well as in sole leather and calico, and had
telephonic communication with somebody; an enterprising merchant, after
all, up with the times, in spite of appearances.

The shop was like the valley, a careless tourist might have said,--a
sleepy shop in Sleepy Hollow. To me it seemed not so. Peaceful, remote,
sequestered,--these and all similar epithets suited well with Longnook;
but for myself, in all my loitering there I was never otherwise than
wide awake. The close-lying, barren, mountainous-looking hills did not
oppress the mind, but rather lifted and dilated it, and although I could
not hear the surf, I felt all the while the neighborhood of the sea; not
the harbor, but the ocean, with nothing between me and Spain except that
stretch of water. Blessed forever be Dyer's Hollow, I say, and blessed
be its inhabitants! Whether Western Islanders or "regular Cape Cod men,"
may they live and die in peace.

FIVE DAYS ON MOUNT MANSFIELD.

"Lead him through the lovely mountain-paths,
And talk to him of things at hand and common."
MATTHEW ARNOLD.

I went up t