noon
He talked at random of brooks that start nowhere and go nowhere , save over white stones and past watercress ; of thin ribbed ferns and of scarlet bunchberries . He told her of a stream he knew , where , if you lie very quiet in the moss , you see speckled trout dart over white pebbles into the darker water beneath the lichened rocks . He told her of the shallows , and pools , and falls you find if you keep to its banks for the miles it sings by the grave trees . He told her of mountain tops where he had lain near the stars and watched the noon clouds sweep half a county with their big shadows . He told her of old wood roads he had followed through the young maples and birches and evergreens and pines -- roads which lay silent all day long and all night long , month after month , ready for the feet which might tread it once in a year . So she took him back again to the redolent shadows , back to the silences where dreams are born . Here he came upon other things -- the old path gay flowered with illusions which led him toward that future -- A future ?