A WIND-STOKM IN THE FOKESTS 249 



livened with, one of the most bracing wind-storms 

 conceivable. Instead of camping out, as I usually 

 do, I then chanced to be stopping at the house of a 

 friend. But when the storm began to sound, I lost 

 no time in pushing out into the woods to enjoy it. 

 For on such occasions Nature has always some 

 thing rare to show us, and the danger to life and 

 limb is hardly greater than one would experience 

 crouching deprecatingly beneath a roof. 



It was still early morning when I found my 

 self fairly adrift. Delicious sunshine came pour 

 ing over the hills, lighting the tops of the pines, 

 and setting free a steam of summery fragrance that 

 contrasted strangely with the wild tones of the 

 storm. The air was mottled with pine-tassels and 

 bright green plumes, that went flashing past in the 

 sunlight like birds pursued. But there was not 

 the slightest dustiness, nothing less pure than 

 leaves, and ripe pollen, and flecks of withered 

 bracken and moss. I heard trees falling for hours 

 at the rate of one every two or three minutes ; 

 some uprooted, partly on account of the loose, wa 

 ter-soaked condition of the ground ; others broken 

 straight across, where some weakness caused by 

 fire had determined the spot. The gestures of the 

 various trees made a delightful study. Young Su 

 gar Pines, light and feathery as squirrel-tails, were 

 bowing almost to the ground ; while the grand old 

 patriarchs, whose massive boles had been tried in 

 a hundred storms, waved solemnly above them, 

 their long, arching branches streaming fluently on 

 the gale, and every needle thrilling and ringing 

 and shedding off keen lances of light like a dia- 



