from J^mWesitie* 127 



their way back again. It is in such a place as this that the 

 truth of some of Wordsworth's touches may be recognised, 

 which are most amusing to Cockney readers. Perhaps no 

 passage has been more ridiculed than that which tells of the 

 * solemn bleat ' of 



* a lamb left somewhere to itself, 

 The plaintive spirit of the solitude.' 



The laughers are thinking of a cattle-market, or a flock of 

 sheep on a dusty road ; and they know nothing of the effect 

 of a solitary bleat of a stray lamb up on the mountains. If 

 they had ever felt the profound stillness of the higher fells, 

 or heard it broken by the plaintive cry, repeated and not 

 answered, they would be aware that there is true solemnity 

 in the sound. 



Still further on, when the sheep are all left behind, the 

 stranger may see a hawk perched upon a great boulder. He 

 will see it take flight when he comes near, and cleave the 

 air below him, and hang above him, — to the infinite terror, 

 as he knows, of many a small creature there, — and then 

 whirl away to some distant part of the park. Perhaps a 

 heavy buzzard may rise, flapping from her nest on the moor, 

 or pounce from a crag in the direction of any water-birds 

 that may be about the springs and pools in the hills. There 

 is no sound, unless it be the hum of the gnats in the hot sun- 

 shine. There is an aged man in the district, however, who 

 hears more than this, and sees more than people would, per- 

 haps, imagine. An old shepherd has the charge of four 

 water-gauges which are set up on four ridges, — desolate, 

 misty spots, sometimes below but often above the clouds. 

 He visits each once a month, and notes down what the gauges 

 record ; and when the tall old man, with his staff, passes out 



