Do you really think that the huntsman hunts only the deer? He, himself,
doubtless thinks that the trophy of the antlers was all he went out
into the woods to win. But there came a day to him when he missed the
deer, and caught a glimpse instead of the divine huntress, Diana,
high-buskined, short-kirtled, speeding with her hounds through the
lonely woodland, and his thoughts ran no more on venison for that day.

The same truth is true of all men who go out into the green, blue-eyed
wilderness, whether they go there in pursuit of game or butterflies.
They find something stranger and better than what they went out to seek,
and, if they come home disappointed in the day's bag or catch, there is
yet something in their eyes, and across their brows, a light of peace,
an enchanted calm, which tells those who understand that they, at all
events, have seen the great god Pan, and heard the music he can make out
of the pipy hemlocks or the lonely pines.




XIII

AN OLD AMERICAN TOW-PATH


The charm of an old canal is one which every one seems to feel. Men who
care nothing about ruined castles or Gothic cathedrals light up with
romantic enthusiasm if you tell them of some old disused or seldom-used
canal, grass-grown and tree-shaded, along which, hardly oftener than
once a week, a leisurely barge--towed by an equally leisurely mule, with