I wore no stockings. The sun
looked down upon all nature with great good humor; everything smiled
around me; and as I passed for a few miles across an upland country
which stretched down from a chain of dark rugged mountains that lay
westward, I could not help feeling, although the feeling was indeed
checked--that the scene was exhilarating. The rough upland was in
several places diversified with green spots of cultivated land, with
some wood, consisting of an old venerable plantation of mountain pine,
that hung on the convex sweep of a large knoll away to my right,--with
a broad sheet of lake that curled to the fresh arrowy breeze of morning,
on which a variety of water-fowl were flapping their wings or skimming
along, leaving a troubled track on the peaceful waters behind them;
there were also deep intersections of precipitous or sloping glens,
graced with hazel, holly, and every description of copse-wood. On other
occasions I have drunk deeply of pleasure, when in the midst of this
scenery, bearing about me the young, free, and bounding spirit, its
first edge of enjoyment unblunted by the collision of base minds and
stony hearts, against which experience jostles us in maturer life.

The dew hung shining upon the leaves, and fell in pattering showers
from the trees, as a bird, alarmed at my approach, would spring from the
branch and leave it vibrating in the air behind her; the early challenge
of the cock grouse, and the _quick-go-quick_ of the quail, were
cheerfully uttered on all sides. The rapid martins twittered with
peculiar glee, or, in the light caprice of their mirth, placed
themselves for a moment upon the edge of a scaur, or earthly precipice,
in which their nests were built, and then shot up again to mingle with
the careering and joyful flock that cut the air in every direction.
Where is the heart which could not enjoy such a morning scene? Under any
other circumstances it would have enchanted me; but here, in fact,
that intensity of spirit which is necessary to the due contemplation of
beautiful prospects, was transferred to a gloomier object. I was under
the influence of a feeling quite new to me. It was not pleasure, nor was
it pain, but a chilliness of soul which proceeded from the gloomy and
severe task that I had undertaken--a task which, when I considered the
danger and the advantages annexed to its performance, was sufficient to
abstract me from every other object. It was really the first exercise