Summer of a furrowed hill in this midsummer season. 



Clouds. He will then feel the steady, upflowing tide of 

 the warm air from the low-lying glens and 

 valleys, a constant tepid draught, the breath 

 of the earth. It will not be long before the 

 current which shook yonder rose-flusht briar, 

 which swayed these harebells as foam is blown, 

 which lifted yonder rowan-branch and softly 

 trampled this bracken underfoot, is gathered 

 by scaur and sudden corrie to the sheer scarps 

 of the mountain-summit, to be impelled thence, 

 as a geyser is thrown from an imperious fount, 

 high into the cold and windy solitude. There 

 it may suddenly be transmuted to an incalcul- 

 able host of invisible ice-needles, and become 

 cirrus ; to float like thistledown, or to be in- 

 numerably scattered in wisps and estrays, or 

 long ' grey-mares'-tails,' or dispersed like foam 

 among vast, turbulent shallows. Or it may keep 

 to the lee-side of the mountain-summit, and 

 stretch far like a serrated sword, or undulat- 

 ingly extend like a wind-narrowed banner, 

 covering as a flag the climbing armies of pine 

 and boulder and the inscrutable array of 

 shadow. 



Cirrus . . . what a beauty there is in the 

 familiar name : what beauty of association for 

 all who love the pageant of cloud, and, loving, 

 know somewhat of the science of the meteor- 



174 



