But to return to my loafing idyll. Perhaps, if I had to select out of several the ideal loafing haunt in these parts, it would be the verandah of our doctor, another bright New Englander, a graduate of Harvard, and M.D., who, after fourteen years’ practice at Boston, was driven South by threatenings of chest troubles, and happily pitched on this tableland amongst the mountains. Not that he is a loaf-brother, except on rare occasions; a man diligent in his business, and prompt to answer any professional call; but as nobody seems ever to be ill, his leisure is abundant. The greater part of this he spends in the study and practice of grape-culture, in which he has, in the five years since he took it up, earned a high reputation. But in these autumn months, all the pruning, thinning, and tending are over in the forenoon, and in the hours which follow, which are delightfully hot and enjoyable to all sun-lovers, he is generally to be found in his verandah, well supplied with rocking-chairs. In front of the verandah is his principal vineyard, sloping south, and at the bottom of the slope, right away to the distant mountain-range (with Pike’s Peak soaring to the clouds, the centre of the military telegraph system in the war, from which messages were flashed to Look-out Mountain, over Chattanooga, in the critical days of battle, before Sherman started on his march to the sea), wave beyond wave, as it were, of many-coloured forest, each taking fresh tints as clouds flit over, and the triumphant old sun slopes to the West. There one may find the doctor in his rocker, his feet higher than his head on one of the verandah supports--and all who have learnt to appreciate the rocking-chair will agree that “heels up” is half the battle--his tobacco and a book on vines on a small table by his side, and over his head, within easy reach, a rope depending from the verandah roof. At first I took it for the common domestic bell-pull, but soon discovered its more subtle bearing on the luxury of loafing. The doctor had been much exercised by the visits of birds of outrageous appetite to his “Norton’s Virginia,” and other precious vines. At first he had resorted to his double-barrelled gun and small shot--indeed, it yet stood in a corner of the balcony, loaded--but had soon abandoned it. Its use was compatible neither with his love for birds nor the enjoyment of his rocking-chair. So, by an ingenious arrangement, he had hung bells at five or six points in the vineyard, connecting each and all with the depending-rope, so that no sooner did a bird settle with a view to lunch or dinner, than it was saluted by a peal from a bell close by, which sent it skirling back to the forest, while the doctor had neither to lower his heels nor take the pipe from his mouth.