One with the cricket in the ground,
And fagot on the hearth,
Resounds the rare domestic sound
Along the forest path.

Before night we will take a journey on skates along the course of this
meandering river, as full of novelty to one who sits by the cottage fire
all the winter's day, as if it were over the polar ice, with Captain Parry
or Franklin; following the winding of the stream, now flowing amid hills,
now spreading out into fair meadows, and forming a myriad coves and bays
where the pine and hemlock overarch. The river flows in the rear of the
towns, and we see all things from a new and wilder side. The fields and
gardens come down to it with a frankness, and freedom from pretension,
which they do not wear on the highway. It is the outside and edge of the
earth. Our eyes are not offended by violent contrasts. The last rail of
the farmer's fence is some swaying willow bough, which still preserves its
freshness, and here at length all fences stop, and we no longer cross any
road. We may go far up within the country now by the most retired and
level road, never climbing a hill, but by broad levels ascending to the
upland meadows. It is a beautiful illustration of the law of obedience,
the flow of a river; the path for a sick man, a highway down which an
acorn cup may float secure with its freight. Its slight occasional falls,
whose precipices would not diversify the landscape, are celebrated by mist
and spray, and attract the traveller from far and near. From the remote
interior, its current conducts him by broad and easy steps, or by one
gentle inclined plane, to the sea. Thus by an early and constant yielding
to the inequalities of the ground, it secures itself the easiest passage.

No domain of nature is quite closed to man at all times, and now we draw