‘The dog, the shaggy dog. At noon, he steals off, of himself, to change his shape—returns, and lies down awhile, nigh the door. Don’t you see him? His head is turned round at you; though, when you came, he looked before him.’

‘Your eyes rest but on your work; what do you speak of?’

‘By the window, crossing.’

‘You mean this shaggy shadow—the nigh one? And, yes, now that I mark it, it is not unlike a large, black Newfoundland dog. The invading shadow gone, the invaded one returns. But I do not see what casts it.’

‘For that, you must go without.’

‘One of those grassy rocks, no doubt.’

‘You see his head, his face?’

‘The shadow’s? You speak as if you saw it, and all the time your eyes are on your work.’

‘Tray looks at you,’ still without glancing up; ‘this is his hour; I see him.’

‘Have you, then, so long sat at this mountain-window, where but clouds and vapours pass, that, to you, shadows are as things, though you speak of them as of phantoms; that, by familiar knowledge, working like a second sight, you can, without looking for them, tell just where they are, though, as having mice- like feet, they creep about, and come and go; that, to you, these lifeless shadows are as living friends, who, though out of sight, are not out of mind, even in their faces—is it so?’

‘That way I never thought of it. But the friendliest one, that used to soothe my weariness so much, coolly quivering on the ferns, it was taken from me, never to return, as Tray did just now. The shadow of a birch. The tree was struck by lightning, and brother cut it up. You saw the cross-pile outdoors—the buried root lies under it; but not the shadow. That is flown, and never will come back, nor ever anywhere stir again.’

Another cloud here stole along, once more blotting out the dog, and blackening all the mountain; while the stillness was so still, deafness might have forgot itself, or else believed that noiseless shadow spoke.

‘Birds, Marianna, singing-birds, I hear none; I hear nothing. Boys and bob-o-links, do they never come a-berrying up here?’

‘Birds, I seldom hear; boys, never. The berries mostly ripe and fall—few, but me, the wiser.’

‘But yellow-birds showed me the way—part way, at least.’

‘And then flew back. I guess they play about the mountainside, but don’t make the top their home. And no doubt you think that, living so lonesome here, knowing nothing, hearing nothing—little, at least, but sound of thunder and the fall of trees—never reading, seldom speaking, yet ever wakeful, this is what gives me my strange thoughts—for so you call them—this weariness and wakefulness together. Brother, who stands and works in open air, would I could rest like him; but mine is mostly but dull woman’s work—sitting, sitting, restless sitting.’

‘But, do you not go walk at times? These woods are wide.’

‘And lonesome; lonesome, because so wide. Sometimes, ’tis true, of afternoons, I go a little way; but soon come back again. Better feel lone by hearth, than rock. The shadows hereabouts I know—those in the woods are strangers.’