15
gray behind the pines to where it showed a glossy blue-black
between the stars.

A faint wind, more like a moving coolness than a stream
of air, passed down the glade from time to time; so that
even in my great chamber the air was being renewed all 20
night long. I have not often enjoyed a more serene possession
of myself, nor felt more independent of material aids.
The outer world, from which we cower into our houses, seemed
after all a gentle, habitable place; and night after night a
man's bed, it seemed, was laid and waiting for him in the 25
fields, where God keeps an open house. I thought I had
rediscovered one of those truths which are revealed to
savages and hid from political economists: at the least, I
had discovered a new pleasure for myself. And yet even
while I was exulting in my solitude I became aware of a 30
strange lack. I wished a companion to lie near me in the
starlight, silent and not moving, but ever within touch.
For there is a fellowship more quiet even than solitude,
and which, rightly understood, is solitude made perfect.

As I thus lay, between content and longing, a faint
noise stole towards me through the pines. I thought, at
first, it was the crowing of cocks or the barking of dogs at 5
some very distant farm; but steadily and gradually it took
articulate shape in my ears, until I became aware that a
passenger was going by upon the highroad of the valley
and singing loudly as he went. There was more of good will
than grace in his performance; but he trolled with ample 10
lungs; and the sound of his voice took hold upon the hillside
and set the air shaking in the leafy glens. I have
heard people passing by night in sleeping cities; some of
them sang; one, I remember, played loudly on the bagpipes.
I have heard the rattle of a cart or carriage spring 15
up suddenly after hours of stillness and pass, for some
minutes, within the range of my hearing as I lay abed.
There is a romance about all who are abroad in the black
hours, and with something of a thrill we try to guess their
business. But here the romance was double: first, this 20
glad passenger, who sent up his voice in music through the
night; and then I, on the other hand, buckled into my
sack, and smoking alone in the pine woods between four
and five thousand feet