SUMMER PICTURES. 149 



It is glorious now, as Thomas Miller hath it, to wander "through 

 green lanes which lead nowhere," into dreary old woods, where little 

 hillocks of red leaves spin round and round in a giddy dance with the 

 "wild west wind," and where crisped leaves overhang the pathway, and 

 where you get into the thick underwood, and are so shut in from the 

 sky and the country round, that you despair of ever finding the path 

 again, and wonder what were the sensations of the dear "babies" 

 who died in the wood ; and perhaps you hear the full and delicious 

 notes of some little robin, and you begin to estimate the probabilities 

 of that being the bird which will cover your dead body with leaves, if 

 that uninhabited jungle shoxild prove to you a sepulchre. 



Up from the broad cornfields green hills arise, whose boundary fills 

 the sky, and the white patches here and there upon the upland horizon 

 show the villages which lie there ; and as these landmarks fade from 

 the sight, and become again visible, you can tell when a thick cloud 

 is passing over, even at that distance, and if you watch you will see 

 the sombre shadow gliding noiselessly along towards you. It passes 

 over the meadows, changes the line of the river, and at last glides 

 over your own head, and you feel a few drops of rain while the gloom 

 lasts, and, gazing on it as it recedes towards the opposite horizon, you 

 see the shower growing steadily, and stalking on under the sunshine 

 like a god defiant. Then, as it gathers strength, the sun's rays fall 

 upon the ebbing tide, and the majestic arch of many colours spans the 

 scene from one horizon to the other. 



Lovely, indeed, are the little sheets of water, which seem only made 

 for the frogs and toads, and yellow fiags and bulrushes to play in, and 

 which nature must have dug for the wood-birds to go to and drink 

 when the July sun had sucked up all the forest runnels. Amid the 

 reedy brakes, you sometimes start the black water-hen, and she 

 shrieks with alarm for her downy family of helpless little ones, and at 

 the same moment down goes the water-rat with a deep plash, to rise 

 again at some goodly distance, and immediately commence swimming 

 round and round some broken branch which dips into the pond, and 

 nibble a leaf here and there, as if trying to persuade himself that 

 nothing has happened, and that there is no need to fear intruding 

 bipeds. 



Sometimes you come suddenly upon a quiet village embowered in 

 ancient trees, on the border of a thick wood, and there are two or 

 three huge sign-posts, and sundry stacks of hay, with homesteads and 



