That is all.
You will hear at various times other birds peculiarly of the North.
Loons alternately calling and uttering their maniac laughter; purple
finches or some of the pine sparrows warbling high and clear; the
winter wren, whose rapturous ravings never fail to strike the attention
of the dullest passer; all these are exclusively Northern voices, and
each expresses some phase or mood of the Silent Places. But none
symbolizes as do the three. And when first you hear one of them after
an absence, you are satisfied that things are right in the world, for
the North Country's spirit is as it was.
Now ensued a spell of calm weather, with a film of haze over the sky.
The water lay like quicksilver, heavy and inert. Toward afternoon it
became opalescent. The very substance of the liquid itself seemed
impregnated with dyes ranging in shade from wine colour to the most
delicate lilac. Through a smoke veil the sun hung, a ball of red, while
beneath every island, every rock, every tree, every wild fowl floating
idly in a medium apparently too delicate for its support, lurked the
beautiful crimson shadows of the North.
[Illustration: EACH WAVE WAS SINGLY A PROBLEM, TO FAIL IN WHOSE
SOLUTION MEANT INSTANT SWAMPING.]
Hour after hour, day after day, we slipped on. Point after point,
island after island, presented itself silently to our inspection and
dropped quietly astern. The beat of paddles fitted monotonously into
the almost portentous stillness.
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