The brook is bestrewn with stones, some bare,
some partially moss-grown, and sometimes so huge as--once at least--to
occupy almost the whole breadth of the current. Amongst these the stream
brawls, only that this word does not express its good-natured voice, and
"murmur" is too quiet. It sings along, sometimes smooth, with the
pebbles visible beneath, sometimes rushing dark and swift, eddying and
whitening past some rock, or underneath the hither or the farther bank;
and at these places B------ cast his line, and sometimes drew out a
trout, small, not more than five or six inches long. The farther we went
up the brook, the wilder it grew. The opposite bank was covered with
pines and hemlocks, ascending high upwards, black and solemn. One knew
that there must be almost a precipice behind, yet we could not see it.
At the foot you could spy, a little way within the darksome shade, the
roots and branches of the trees; but soon all sight was obstructed amidst
the trunks. On the hither side, at first the bank was bare, then fringed
with alder-bushes, bending and dipping into the stream, which, farther
on, flowed through the midst of a forest of maple, beech, and other
trees, its course growing wilder and wilder as we proceeded.
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