Page:The first and last journeys of Thoreau - lately discovered among his unpublished journals and manuscripts.djvu/72

 who shall count the finer cobwebs that soar and float away from their utmost tops, and the myriad insects that lodge between them?

Salmon Brook comes in from the east, under the railroad, but we sailed up far enough into the meadows which border it to learn its piscatorial history from a haymaker on its banks. He told me that the silver eel was formerly abundant here, and pointed to some sunken creels at its mouth. Pennichook forms the northern boundary of Nashua, which we expected to reach before night. In these fair meadows, where the haymaker rested on his rake and told us all he knew, we were tired and yet our eyes ranged over them contentedly, and we touched their margins with our hands; and we made that afternoon a pleasant and memorable acquaintance. But we could not afford to loiter in this pleasant roadstead, and so stood out to sea again.

We soon after passed the village of Nashua upon the river of the same name, where a [24]