"Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things
We murder to dissect.

Enough of science and of art:
Close up these barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives."

WORDSWORTH.


So the salmon went up, after Tom had warned them of the wicked old
otter; and Tom went down, but slowly and cautiously, coasting along
shore. He was many days about it, for it was many miles down to
the sea; and perhaps he would never have found his way, if the
fairies had not guided him, without his seeing their fair faces, or
feeling their gentle hands.

And, as he went, he had a very strange adventure. It was a clear
still September night, and the moon shone so brightly down through
the water, that he could not sleep, though he shut his eyes as
tight as possible. So at last he came up to the top, and sat upon
a little point of rock, and looked up at the broad yellow moon, and
wondered what she was, and thought that she looked at him. And he
watched the moonlight on the rippling river, and the black heads of
the firs, and the silver-frosted lawns, and listened to the owl's
hoot, and the snipe's bleat, and the fox's bark, and the otter's
laugh; and smelt the soft perfume of the birches, and the wafts of