From your doorstep you can look placidly out on the great
unknown. The noises of the forest draw close about you their circle of
mystery, but the circle cannot break upon you, for here you have
conjured the homely sounds of kettle and crackling flame to keep ward.
Thronging down through the twilight steal the jealous woodland shadows,
awful in the sublimity of the Silent Places, but at the sentry outposts
of your firelit trees they pause like wild animals, hesitating to
advance. The wilderness, untamed, dreadful at night, is all about; but
this one little spot you have reclaimed. Here is something before
unknown to the eerie spirits of the woods. As you sleepily knock the
ashes from the pipe, you look about on the familiar scene with
accustomed satisfaction. You are at home.
V.
ON LYING AWAKE AT NIGHT.
"Who hath lain alone to hear the wild goose cry?"
About once in so often you are due to lie awake at night. Why this is
so I have never been able to discover. It apparently comes from no
predisposing uneasiness of indigestion, no rashness in the matter of
too much tea or tobacco, no excitation of unusual incident or
stimulating conversation. In fact, you turn in with the expectation of
rather a good night's rest. Almost at once the little noises of the
forest grow larger, blend in the hollow bigness of the first drowse;
your thoughts drift idly back and forth between reality and dream;
when--_snap!_--you are broad awake!
Perhaps the reservoir of your vital forces is full to the overflow of a
little waste; or perhaps, more subtly, the great Mother insists thus
that you enter the temple of her larger mysteries.
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