Signs of Rain. 17 



and clear and warm ; you may sit here on the turf 

 till midnight and find no dew, and still feel the lan- 

 guid, enervating influence of the hot blast. This 

 goes in time, and is succeeded by heavy morning 

 mists hanging like a cloak over the hills and filling 

 up the hollows. They roll away as the da}* advances, 

 and there is the sun bright as ever in the midst of 

 the cloudless sky. The shepherds say the mists 

 cany away the rain ; certainly it does not come. 



Every now and then promising signs exhibit them- 

 selves. A black bank of vapor receives the setting 

 sun, and in the east huge mountainous clouds with 

 beetling precipices and caverns, in which surely the 

 thunder lurks, swell and roll upwards in the hush of 

 the evening. The farmer unrolls his canvas over 

 the new-made ha}Tick, which is not yet thatched, 

 thinking that a torrent will descend in the night ; but 

 no, the morrow is the same. It is a peculiarity of 

 our usually changeable climate that when once the 

 weather has become thoroughly settled either to dry 

 or wet, no signs of alteration are of any value, true 

 as the}' may be at other times. 



So the heat continues and the drought increases. 

 The ' land-springs ' breaking out by the sides of the 

 fields have long since disappeared ; the true springs 

 run feebly as the stores of water in the interior of the 

 earth gradually grow less. Great cracks open in the 

 clay of the meadows down below in the vale rifts, 

 wide and deep, into which you may thrust your walk- 

 ing stick to the handle. Up here on the hills the 

 turf grows hard and inelastic ; it loses that ' springy ' 

 feel under the foot which makes it so pleasant to 

 walk upon. The grass becomes dull in tint and 

 2 



