ead partly turned. There was no mistaking the significance of that
furtive, sidelong glance; he had read the newspapers, and didn't intend
to be attacked from behind unawares! If he should ever cast his eye over
these pages (and whatever he may have thought of my appearance, I am
bound to say of him that he looked like a man who might appreciate good
literature), he will doubtless remember the incident, especially if I
mention the field-glass which I carried slung over one shoulder.
Evidently the world sees no reason why a man with anything better to do
should be wandering aimlessly about the country in midwinter. Nor do I
quarrel with the world's opinion. The majority is wiser than the
minority, of course; otherwise, what becomes of its divine and
inalienable right to lay down the law? The truth with me was that I
_had_ nothing better to do. I confess it without shame. Surely there is
no lack of shoemakers. Why, then, should not here and there a man take
up the business of walking, of wearing out shoes? Everything is related
to everything else, and the self-same power that brought the killdeers
to Marblehead sent me there to see them and do them honor. Should it
please the gods to order it so, I shall gladly be kept running on such
errands for a score or two of winters.

DYER'S HOLLOW.

"Quiet hours
Pass'd among these heaths of ours
By the grey Atlantic sea."
MATTHEW ARNOLD.

I lived for three weeks at the "Castle," though, unhappily, I did not
become aware of my romantic good fortune till near the close of my stay.
There was no trace of battlement or turret, nothing in the least
suggestive of Warwick or Windsor, or of Sir Walter Scott. In fact, the
Castle was not a building of any kind, but a hamlet; a small collection
of houses--a somewhat scattered collection, it must be owned,--such as,
on the bleaker and sandier parts of Cape Cod, is distinguished by the
name of village. On one side flowed the river, doubling its course
through green meadows with almost imperceptible motion. As I watched the
tide come in, I found myself saying,--

"Here twice a day the Pamet fills,
The salt sea-water passes by."

But the rising flood could make no "silence in the hills;" for the
Pamet, as I saw it, is far too sedate a stream ever to be caught
"babbling." It has only some three miles to run, and seems to know
perfectly well that it need not run fast.