As the sun grew stronger, Algy retreated into the old oak woods by the banks of the quieter loch. Everything was fresh and green and beautiful there in the dappled sunlight. It was very quiet apart from the songs of the other birds, as there are no paths through these woods to bring noisy visitors to disturb the peace. Algy sat on a rock and studied the mosses and ferns, thinking of a verse by Lord Byron:

          There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
          There is a rapture on the lonely shore,
          There is society, where none intrudes,
          By the deep sea, and music in its roar:
          I love not man the less, but Nature more,
          From these our interviews, in which I steal
          From all I may be, or have been before,
          To mingle with the Universe, and feel
          What I can ne’er express, yet cannot all conceal.

[Algy is quoting verse CLXXVIII from Lord Byron’s extremely long narrative poem, Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage.]

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