Thoreau writes in his journal:
7.30 P.M.—To Conantum . . . Hubbard’s Brook . . . My neighbors have gone to the vestry to hear “Ned Kendal,” the bugler, to-night, but I am come forth to the hills to hear my bugler in the horizon . . . And now I strike the road at the causeway. It is hard, and I hear the sound of my steps, a sound which should never be heard, for it draws down my thoughts . . . The planks and railing of Hubbard’s Bridge are removed. I walk over on the string-pieces, resting in the middle until the moon comes out of a cloud, that I may see my path, for between the next piers the stringpieces also are removed and there is only a rather narrow plank, let down three or four feet. I essay to cross it, but it springs a little and I mistrust myself, whether I shall not plunge into the river. Some demonic genius seems to be warning me. Attempt not the passage; you will surely be drowned. It is very real that I am thus affected. Yet I am fully aware of the absurdity of minding such suggestions. I put out my foot, but I am checked, as if that power had laid a hand on my breast and chilled me back. Nevertheless, I cross, stooping at first, and gain the other side. (I make the most of it on account of the admonition, but it was nothing to remark on. I returned the same way two hours later and made nothing of it.) . . . On Conantum I sit awhile in the shade of the woods and look out on the moonlit fields . . . Sitting on the doorstep of Conant house at 9 o’clock, I hear a pear drop . . . I hear the nine o’clock bell ringing in Bedford . . . As I recross the string-pieces of the bridge, I see the water-bugs swimming briskly in the moonlight.
