148 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



Well, there are so many, I scarcely know with which to begin. 

 Do you see yonder gipsy-tent, sending up a blue wreath of smoke 

 among the elm-trees, — a soft curling stream of the purest azure, 

 flinging a most beautiful shadow upon the leafy branches, but smell- 

 ing, when you get amongst it, as vile as a tinker's pipe, or the breath 

 of an old exciseman? There is an old knotted oak to the right, 

 which looks as venerable as St. Pierre ; just below it is a wooden 

 bridge, which cracked its ribs long ago, and now threatens to go in 

 the back, and let some poor fellow souse into the water, with all his 

 butter and eggs, some fine morning before breakfast. The water- 

 weeds and snapdragons are precious fond of these maimed and 

 broken- winded timbers, and grow in rich festoons of green and yellow, 

 as if they were adorning the portico of Flora's temple. The elon- 

 gated mass of green algae Avhich clings to the last plank by the willow- 

 tree, and hangs down into the slow current as if it had nothing to do 

 but to be idle, and was almost too lazy to do that, will wake up some 

 morning and find that it had been clinging to a forlorn hope, and 

 must get out of the rubbish and masses of rotten timber the best way 

 it can, or perish amid the ruins of its lost home. 



Well ! swing round a bit over the common, and get upon the 

 hillock of gravel, and now look all around upon the rich masses of 

 waving fern, and the glittering light which plays amid the cool green 

 of the oak leaves ; see the winding river, like a clear silver line, cut- 

 ting its way through green oases of willows and tall reeds ; look 

 further on over the heath-covered hill, sheltering the sweet village in 

 the valley at its feet ; look at the strange play of the sunshine, as the 

 huge clouds go sailing along like mighty spirits in the vast abyss. 

 Here is the broad highway, dotted here and therewith moving figures 

 and stately clumps of pines, and the sun shines upon the white sandy 

 road, as if it would blind the very hedges which stand along the path- 

 way to hide the fields from wayfarers. Down yonder lies a broad 

 reedy marsh, and the clouds hang above it to see their faces reflected 

 in the waters which look so blue and cool, and which go lurking here 

 and there beneath rank sedges and osiers and tall rushes, as if to de- 

 lude some unheeding wight to venture where it looks so fresh and 

 green, so as suddenly to find himself up to his neck in a cold bath, 

 and so entangled in mud and weeds, that it were better had he never 

 learned to swim, for courage and dexterity are the worst possible 

 qualities in such conditions. 



