Page:The heart of Monadnock (IA heartofmonadnock00timl).pdf/165

 of sapphire and emerald and gold! Tranquil, far-spread silence!

He loitered over the Jaffrey Ridge trail with ever fresh delight; past the tawny, swampy, rock-girt meadow, with its fluffy white cottongrass swinging and swaying its snowy, tufted head with every flirting breeze; up broad ledge after broad ledge, with the east and west horizon line of the ridge slipping back as he approached it, until suddenly he topped it and stood upon its crest. Instantly the far northern view lay unrolled before him. Melting in billowing lines to the dim, hazy outline that was Mt. Washington, the mountains flowed silently away in soundless waves of azure and heliotrope till they broke against the sky. A long gaze here—like a deep draught of water to a parched throat—then the rambler went on down from the crest, to the north, where the slope sank abruptly. He stopped again, drinking in profound breaths of the crystal dustless air, that renewed him like wine. More and more deeply did he breathe it in,