IN A PALACE OF REEDS. 129 



any great physical exertion, we spent in the 

 most delightful way. Will was busy with The 

 ocritus, and kept up a running comment on the 

 oral translation to which he .was treating me, 

 while I, with leisurely care, was making a draw 

 ing in water-colors of a fine butcher-bird I had 

 captured the clay before. The wind came in 

 desultory throbs through our mossy hall, fetch 

 ing up from the river a touch of dampness and 

 the smell of water weeds. All the bird-voices 

 were hushed, or, if heard at all, they wasted 

 themselves in scattering squeaks and lazy 

 dreamful flutings. Shut away from the sun, 

 we were made aware of his extreme heat indi 

 rectly by the softened reflection from the water 

 and by that dusky dryness always observable 

 on the reed leaves and the blades of aquatic 

 grass when a spring day burns like midsummer. 

 We could hear the chattering cry of the king 

 fisher and an occasional plash, as the industri 

 ous bird plunged into the river after his prey. 

 Diagonally across the stream, near the other 

 bank, a small tree growing at the water s edge, 

 had caught a scraggily drift of logs and boughs, 

 round which a brown scum, with huge pyra 

 mids of white foam, was clinging. Some green 

 herons stood on projecting sticks, stretching 

 their puffy necks, or silently sulking, with 

 their sharp beaks elevated and their throats 

 knotted into balls upon their breasts. Among 

 some stones in a shallow place, a bright spot 

 ted water-snake lay in the ripple, holding up 

 his angular head and darting his malign tongue 

 in sheer wantonness of spirit. 



Those idyls, as Will read them, fell from 

 his lips to immediately blend with the warm 

 lull, the glowing dream of Nature. Those flow- 

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