pausing as he went, walked in the wet fields beside his shadow, and

was glad.

A trellised path led down into the valley of the brook, and he

turned to follow it. The stream was a break-neck, boiling Highland

river. Hard by the farm, it leaped a little precipice in a thick

grey-mare's tail of twisted filaments, and then lay and worked and

bubbled in a lynn. Into the middle of this quaking pool a rock

protruded, shelving to a cape; and thither Otto scrambled and sat

down to ponder.

Soon the sun struck through the screen of branches and thin early

leaves that made a hanging bower above the fall; and the golden

lights and flitting shadows fell upon and marbled the surface of

that so seething pot; and rays plunged deep among the turning

waters; and a spark, as bright as a diamond, lit upon the swaying

eddy. It began to grow warm where Otto lingered, warm and heady;

the lights swam, weaving their maze across the shaken pool; on the

impending rock, reflections danced like butterflies; and the air was

fanned by the waterfall as by a swinging curtain.

Otto, who was weary with tossing and beset with horrid phantoms of

remorse and jealousy, instantly fell dead in love with that sun-

chequered, echoing corner. Holding his feet, he stared out of a

drowsy trance, wondering, admiring, musing, losing his way among

uncertain thoughts. There is nothing that so apes the external

bearing of free will as that unconscious bustle, obscurely following

liquid laws, with which a river contends among obstructions. It

seems the very play of man and destiny, and as Otto pored on these

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