He cheerfully led
the way to my apartment, stepping over the limbs of his men, who
were asleep on the floor in an intervening chamber, and showed me
a clean and comfortable bed. For many pleasant hours after the
household was asleep I sat at the open window, for it was a
sultry night, and heard the little river
"Amongst the pumy stones, which seemed to plain,
With gentle murmur, that his course they did restrain."
But I arose as usual by starlight the next morning, before my
host, or his men, or even his dogs, were awake; and, having left
a ninepence on the counter, was already half-way over the
mountain with the sun before they had broken their fast.
Before I had left the country of my host, while the first rays of
the sun slanted over the mountains, as I stopped by the wayside
to gather some raspberries, a very old man, not far from a
hundred, came along with a milking-pail in his hand, and turning
aside began to pluck the berries near me:--
"His reverend locks
In comelye curles did wave;
And on his aged temples grew
The blossoms of the grave.
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