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self with all speed to a thatched cottage, th⟨at I⟩ saw at some distance, for shelter.
Many years had elapsed since I had ⟨wa⟩ndered about in this spot in careless infancy and the pretty secluded cot to which I was advancing, had once been my home.
⟨I⟩ looked around on the hills and dales, and could easily recognise them as my old age ⟨ac⟩quaintances. "Ha,' said I, 'ye change n⟨ot⟩ your appearance, ye grow not old in th⟨e⟩ course of time, the feebleness of age comet ⟨is⟩ not upon you;—ye still smile in the brightness of summer, and frown in the lowering winter. For ages ye have reared you⟨r⟩ towering crests, and given food to the flock and the herds that have chequered your dark surface; ye have given a direction to the murmuring brook that proceeds from you till it seeks, far distant, the mighty ocean; and while generation after generation hath passed away, ye have preserved unvaried the features ye possessed in ages gone—Even how, as in years past, my eyes behold the till sunshine sleeping upon your gentle sloping declivities, interrupted only when he light cloud of spring, for a moment, casts over them its passing shadow! My cogitations were suddenly interrupted by the gate at the end of the pasture, which I opened. In another moment I was in the porch of the cottage; I lifted the latch, and went
