Sketcher.

Tuapeka Times, Volume XX, Issue 1385, 10 September 1887, Page 2 (Supplement)

Sketcher.

Beeeher.

Something more than thirty years ago, a homesick Western boy wandered about the Berkshire Hills. Despite their picturesque beauty they Boomed petty to on* accustomed to the mighty forests and vast horizons of the West. Itroayseeni a curious thing, but the very ruggedness and irregularity of the outlook oppressed him. He longed for tha silence of the great woods ; the sight of its familiar denizens ; the blue lake in tha distance, gilded by tbe sunshine or flecked with whitecsps by "the storm. In short, he was homesick— not for home perhaps, but for the West— for his accustomed surroundings. Of course he did nob know what ailed him. He had been accustomed to the woods and a gun almost from infancy, and with a gun he sought the dwarfed and scraggy thickets upon the mountain side as a cure for the nostalgia he did not understand. Though he could traverse miles of level woodland with an instinct as unerring as a homing pigeon, he was easily lost among the hills through which the Housatonic flows in and out with puzzling uncertainty. One Autumn day when the blue haze hung over the hills ; when the maples flamed out against the hemlocks hero and there in gaudy rivalry, when tha beeches wera growing brown, the birches beginning to siow their white limbs and the willows a yellow fringe between the green aftermath of the meadows and the dark blue of the waters, he had strayed beyond the limit of his knowledge. Perched npon the outmost point of the cliff that marks the facs of one of the most noted peaks that overlook the valley, he sought anxiously but vainly for some familiar landmark. Whether it was Lee, Lennox, fitockbridgo or great Barrington that lay at his feet he could not determine. Of course everything that ought to have been familiar was absolutely unrecognizable. He was utterly lost. The only way out of his predicament was to go to some of the houses in sight in the valley, inqniro his way home and sneak back ignobly and shamefacedly along the highway.

As he was about to take this course he heard someone clambering along the rough pathway at the foot of tbe ledge, nigh a hundred feet below him. Screened by the thick laurels he watched the newcomer's advance, himself undiscovered. He knew Mr. Beeeher by sight, and knew whore the country house, which was then his haven of rest, was situated. He recognised at a glance the flushed face and stalwart figure, then in the prime of manly strength. His brow was covered with perspiration, for, beside the rough walk he bad taken, he was burdened ■with an armful of trophies he had gathered on the way. Just at the point of the clifE a clear spring. bubbled out from under a gray, mossy rock. He threw his variegated armful down, tossed off his soft hat and, lying prone npon the ground, quenched his thirst. Then he stood up, threw back his long hair, wiped his brow, gazed at the prospect that lay outspread at his feet, sat down upon a spur of the rock, and picked up one by one the leaves and flowers he had gathered. Then he sat for a long time, silent and unmoving, looking down into the quiet valley and off at the hazy hills beyond. The boy had overcome his shyness and was about to descend and inquire his way homeward when ha heard the soft, full tones which stole with such insensible power into each ear. Looking down he saw his companion in the luminous solitude kneeling in the midst of the painted leaves he had scattered on the dun rock, the bright Autumn sunshine lighting up the warm, brown hair and tonching with unwonted radiance the soft lines of his placid face as he prayed — alone — upon the mountain, with no thought that anyone but God could hear.

The boy listened in amazement. He had been accustomed to prayer. Tho family altar was an almost universal- institution then. Prayer as an act of duty ; prayer as a religious rite ; prayer as a religious service — all these were familiar things to his consciousness. He even had his own ideas about prayer, and when he felt that he had been exceptionally bad or had a desire to be exceptionally good, he had sometimes tried praying on his own a ccou nt over and above his share in the^evening and morning devotions. He regarded it as a pretty serious business, however, a thing that needed to be done and ought by no means to be neglected, and which, if persevered in, brought at length a sort of fervent rapture which carried the worshipper into a mystic realm of supernatural bliss. But such a prayer as this he had never heard of before— indeed, he has never heard such another since. A calm, tender, quivering rhapsody of thankfulness that God had made the earth so beautiful. A burst of gratitude for mountain, and va.l. ley, rivet, and spring, rock and brake, sunshine and shadow, tinted leaf and whirring pheasant — everything that had gladdened the eye or charmed the sense during the Autnmnal stroll.

I have no idea how long he prayed. For the first time I thought a prayer too short. I wished he might have kept on forever. I had some curious fancies during its continuance. Perhaps, as I looked at his glowing face and saw his dewy, luminous eyes as it concluded, I may be pardoned if I thought of the Mount of Transfiguration. I trust there was no sacrilege in it. After a while I stole down and timidly asked my way home. I felt ashamed of having been 3 an eavesdropper on his devotions. He evidently. Rioted it, and to put me at my ease asked me if I did npt think it was " a pretty cradle God had made for His children." He walked nearly a mile with me away from his house, which must have been three or four miles from our starting point, to make sure that I did not lose my way. I do not remember anything he said, but I walked all the way home in a sort of delicious dream, full of strange, vague aspirations and sweet, tender recollections. SomeboWl came to see more in nature afterwards than I had ever done beforehand I have never ceased to be grateful that I heard this prayer in the mountain oratory. My relations with him were not close enough to justify recalling the incident to his memory, and I suppose he died quite xmconscious of the identity of the uncouth lad whom he that day initiated not so much into nature's mysteries, for I was no mean woodman even then, but into their mystical relation "to God the giver and man tbe happy recipient. It is probable he had long since forgotten the trivial incident, but for tbe sweet lesson, in common with many, thousands, I still remain his grateful debtor.