steeps to barren heights, where stood none to welcome. Fairy land not
yet, thought I, though the morning is here before me.

Foot-sore enough and weary, I gained not then my journey's end, but came
ere long to a craggy pass, dipping towards growing regions still beyond.
A zigzag road, half overgrown with blueberry bushes, here turned among
the cliffs. A rent was in their ragged sides; through it a little track
branched off, which, upwards threading that short defile, came breezily
out above, to where the mountain-top, part sheltered northward, by a
taller brother, sloped gently off a space, ere darkly plunging; and
here, among fantastic rocks, reposing in a herd, the foot-track wound,
half beaten, up to a little, low-storied, grayish cottage, capped,
nun-like, with a peaked roof.

On one slope, the roof was deeply weather-stained, and, nigh the turfy
eaves-trough, all velvet-napped; no doubt the snail-monks founded mossy
priories there. The other slope was newly shingled. On the north side,
doorless and windowless, the clap-boards, innocent of paint, were yet
green as the north side of lichened pines or copperless hulls of
Japanese junks, becalmed. The whole base, like those of the neighboring
rocks, was rimmed about with shaded streaks of richest sod; for, with
hearth-stones in fairy land, the natural rock, though housed, preserves
to the last, just as in open fields, its fertilizing charm; only, by
necessity, working now at a remove, to the sward without. So, at least,
says Oberon, grave authority in fairy lore. Though setting Oberon aside,
certain it is, that, even in the common world, the soil, close up to
farm-houses, as close up to pasture rocks, is, even though untended,
ever richer than it is a few rods off--such gentle, nurturing heat is
radiated there.