and mossy rock, and with the deep
green shade of the surrounding forest, perpetually solicited the notice
of the lover of landscape; and from every height, the eye rested with
pleasure upon the rich meadows of the bottom land--upon the varied
cornfields spread over the hills; upon the adjacent mountains, with
their bald crags peeping through the screen of forest, and especially
upon the broad lines of naked earth that, here and there, lighted up and
relieved, as a painter would say, with its warm coloring, the heavy
masses of shade.

The day was hot, and it was with a grateful sense of refreshment that
our wayfarers, no less than their horses, found themselves, as they
approached the lowland, gradually penetrating the deep and tangled
thicket and the high wood that hung over and darkened the channel of the
small stream which rippled through the valley. Their road lay along this
stream and frequently crossed it at narrow fords, where the water fell
from rock to rock in small cascades, presenting natural basins of the
limpid flood, embosomed in laurel and alder, and gurgling that busy
music which is one of the most welcome sounds to the ear of a wearied
and overheated traveller.

Butler said but little to his companion, except now and then to express
a passing emotion of admiration for the natural embellishments of the
region; until, at length, the road brought them to a huge mass of rock,
from whose base a fountain issued forth over a bed of gravel, and soon
lost itself in the brook hard by. A small strip of bark, that some
friend of the traveller had placed there, caught the pure water as it
was distilled from the rock, and threw it off in a spout, some few
inches above the surface of the ground. The earth trodden around this
spot showed it to be a customary halting place for those who journeyed
on the road.

Here Butler checked his horse, and announced to his comrade his
intention to suspend, for a while, the toil of travel.

"There is one thing, Galbraith," said he, as he discounted, "wherein all
philosophers agree--man must eat when he is hungry, and rest when he is
weary. We have now been some six hours on horseback, and as this
fountain seems to have been put here for our use, it would be sinfully
slighting the bounties of providence not to do it the honor of a halt.
Get down, man; rummage your havresac, and let us see what you have
there."

Robinson was soon upon his feet, and taking the horses a little dist