dimpling the surface with their tails
in the moonlight–communica-
ting by a long flaxen line with mys-
terious vespertinal fishes which had their
dwelling 40 feet below, or sometimes
dragging 60 feet of line about the
pond, as I drifted in the gentle night
air–now and then feeling a slight
vibration along it–indicative of
some life prowling about its extrem-
ity–of dull uncertain blundering
purpose there, and slow to make
up its mind–at length you
slowly raise, pulling hand over hand,
some horned pout squeaking & squirm-
ing to the upper air.– It was
very queer–in dark nights, when
your thoughts had wandered to
vast and cosmogonal themes in
other spheres–to feel this ^ faint jerk
which came to interrupt your dreams
and link you to nature again.

[Written vertically from bottom in left margin, inserted after 'hardly more dense.–']
Or sometimes at an earlier hour In the ^ warm evenings I sat in my boat on the pond playing the flute, and saw the perch, which I seemed to have charmed hovering around me, and the moon travelling over the ribbed bottom, strewn with the wrecks of the forest. It was very pleasant [Catchwords referencing The Village 2a]