Page:The heart of Monadnock (IA heartofmonadnock00timl).pdf/164

 Today the Mountain-Lover betook himself early to the heights, for on Sundays the dwellers on the plains would seek the mountain in great numbers and he liked to be far away, and have it for his own day. He decided to spend the night also on the cliffs—as he frequently did—and with sandwiches and chocolate in his pocket and a blanket roll on his back he set forth gladly. A leisurely climb it would be, having the day—and the night—before him, and far out on the Dublin Ridge he meant to go. That was always the loneliest part of the mountain.

For three or four days he had been forced to be in New York on perplexing and intricate business and had come back late the evening before. His tired nerves still jangled with the clamor and rush and tumult and heat and drive of the restless, swarming hive. What delight to come back to his mountain again, and to pass thus high, high, up into the open, into an utterly silent world