on, faintly illuminated the summit of the hills, but not a ray
fell into the bottom of the glen where I was lying. The oak rose before
me like a pillar of darkness; and overhead the heartsome stars were set
in the face of the night. No one knows the stars who has not slept, as
the French happily put it, _a la belle etoile_. He may know all their
names and distances and magnitudes, and yet be ignorant of what alone
concerns mankind,--their serene and gladsome influence on the mind. The
greater part of poetry is about the stars; and very justly, for they are
themselves the most classical of poets. These same far-away worlds,
sprinkled like tapers or shaken together like a diamond dust upon the
sky, had looked not otherwise to Roland or Cavalier, when, in the words
of the latter, they had "no other tent but the sky, and no other bed
than my mother earth."

All night a strong wind blew up the valley, and the acorns fell
pattering over me from the oak. Yet on this first night of October, the
air was as mild as May, and I slept with the fur thrown back.

I was much disturbed by the barking of a dog, an animal that I fear more
than any wolf. A dog is vastly braver, and is besides supported by the
sense of duty. If you kill a wolf, you meet with encouragement and
praise; but if you kill a dog, the sacred rights of property and the
domestic affections come clamouring round you for redress. At the end
of a fagging day, the sharp, cruel note of a dog's bark is in itself a
keen annoyance; and to a tramp like myself, he represents the sedentary
and respectable world in its most hostile form. There is something of
the clergyman or the lawyer about this engaging animal; and it he were
not amenable to stones, the boldest man would shrink from travelling
afoot. I respect dogs much in the domestic circle; but on the highway,
or sleeping afield, I both detest and fear them.

I was wakened next morning (Wednesday, October 2nd) by the same dog--for
I knew his bark--making a charge down the bank, and then, seeing me sit
up, retreating again with great alacrity. The stars were not yet quite
extinguished. The heaven was of that enchanting mild grey-blue of the
early morn. A still clear light began to fall, and the trees on the
hillside were outlined sharply against the sky. The wind had veered more
to the north, and no longer reached me in the glen; but as I was going
on with my preparations, it drove a white cloud very swiftly over the
hill