26 



a hint of frost, but not for this night. The 

 wind blows half a gale a conqueror inso- 

 lent of victory. Upland he sets all the world 

 aroar. Lowland levels, under the lee of 

 sharp hills, hold the calm of a great peace. 



How rarely the waters brawl ! From 

 every hand comes up a thread of singing. 

 How clear they run, all awreath with foam- 

 bells. Even ploughland and fallow are 

 beaten hard by such floods. These waters 

 shine whiter far than those from out the 

 woodland, wherein still there lurks some 

 taint of leaf and root. What haste they 

 make all to the great swale, now all over a 

 lake to swim man and horse. One side is 

 the long, sloping water-shed spread over how 

 many hundred acres. The other, a rim of 

 steep, low, rounded hills ; under which the 

 waters must tunnel and burrow to level of 

 valley streams. All the hill-foot is honey- 

 combed with sink-holes round, small pits, 

 darkly deep running down, down straight 

 through loam and clay, then bending to 

 channel under the rock-ribs of the hills. 



Thence come caves. Such runnings un- 

 derground abound in this limestone land. 

 Before you leave the wide, gray, sullen wa- 

 ter here to-day, to-morrow vanished stand 

 a minute on the hither verge, to look over 



