The loveliness of the whole scene before me--the broad rich sweep of
meadowland lying, all bathed in dew, under the pale gray light of an
autumnal morning, with groups of cattle couched still between the trees
where they had passed the night; the distant hills, veiled partially in
mist, partially rearing their round leafy heads toward the brightening
sky; and then the various changes of the landscape, as slowly the day
broke behind the eastern hill; and all the various sounds of bird, and
beast, and insect, which each succeeding variation of the morning served
to call into life as if by magic. First a faint rosy flush stole up the
eastern sky, and nearly at the self-same moment, two or three vagrant
crows came flapping heavily along, at a height so immeasurable that
their harsh voices were by distance modified into a pleasing murmur. And
now a little fish jumped in the streamlet; and the splash, trifling as
it was, with which he fell back on the quiet surface, half startled me.
A moment afterward an acorn plumped down on my head, and as I looked up,
there sat, on a limb not ten feet above me, an impudent rogue of a gray
squirrel, half as big as a rabbit, erect upon his haunches, working away
at the twin brother of the acorn he had dropped upon my hat to break my
reverie, rasping it audibly with his chisel-shaped teeth, and grinning
at me just as coolly as though I were a harmless scare-crow.
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