154 BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 



impassable jungle ; or burrow under the hollow trees, or bask beside 

 the hidden water-courses, or on the great mossy branches of the trees 

 which have been hurled down by winter storms, and have been since 

 overgrown by rank weeds and flowers, which strive from year to year 

 to hide their hoary ruin and decrepitude ? The twilight gloom seems 

 to enter one's very heart, as we gaze upon the dim shadowy grandeur 

 of these green and mysterious woods, which have grown old and 

 patriarchal in the light and darkness, the sunshine and the glooms, 

 of long, long centuries. But there is no time to think of the Druids 

 and the ancient Britons, and we must find our way through deep 

 dells where the foliage darkens, and where gnarled and withered stems 

 stretch upward beseechingly, like troubled souls in purgatory, and 

 get once more into the broadlands and the field paths. The moment 

 we leave the skirts of the wood, we encounter a picture of surpassing 

 loveliness ; there is a broad footpath leading over a wide common, 

 and a sweet little river wends its way silently along under the shadows 

 of stately trees, circling like a silver line around the foot of the furze- 

 covered hill, till it vanishes like an evening cloud in the distance. 

 There are lambs and sheep scattered among the bushes, and the 

 musical jingling of their bells comes floating on the soft air like the 

 music of a dream. There are glorious hillocks of purple heather and 

 wild thyme, haunted all day long by humming bees ; and down in 

 yonder green valley lie the cattle chewing the cud, and almost buried 

 among the grass and flowers ; while out afar lies the little village, 

 with its cracked and tattered windmill and its white cottages and 

 clumps of tall trees, looming upon the blue horizon like an island 

 floating in the sky. 



Who would not leave the crowded city, with its eternal dust and 

 din, and black walls and sooty atmosphere, for such lovely scenes as 

 these ? Who would not leave the stiff" forests of chimney-pots for 

 the green waving forests of beech and oak, and to lie idly by the 

 banks of singing streams ; to see the hawk poised motionless in 

 the air, the timid hare bound through the green fern, and to hear 

 the ring dove cooing ? A walled city is a prison for the human 

 heart, and to shut ourselves up from beholding the beauty with which 

 the hand of God has clothed the earth, an iniquity and a moral death. 



