THE RIVER 



THERE is a slight but perceptible colour in the atmos- 

 phere of summer. It is not visible close at hand, nor 

 always where the light falls strongest, and if looked at 

 too long it sometimes fades away. But over gorse and 

 heath, in the warm hollows of wheatfield, and round 

 about the rising ground there is something more than 

 air alone. It is not mist, nor the hazy vapour of autumn, 

 nor the blue tints that come over the distant hills and 

 woods. 



As there is a bloom upon the peach and grape, so 

 this is the bloom of summer. The air is ripe and rich, 

 full of the emanations, the perfume, from corn and 

 flower and leafy tree. In strictness the term will not, 

 of course, be accurate, yet by what other word can this 

 appearance in the atmosphere be described but as a 

 bloom? Upon a still and sunlit summer afternoon it 

 may be seen over the osier-covered islets in the Thames 

 immediately above Teddington Lock. 



It hovers over the level cornfields that stretch towards 

 Richmond, and along the ridge of the wooded hills that 

 bound them. The bank by the towing-path is steep and 

 shadowless, being bare of trees or hedge ; but the grass 

 is pleasant to rest on, and heat is always more support- 

 able near flowing water. In places the friable earth has 

 crumbled away, and there, where the soil and the stones 

 are exposed, the stonecrop flourishes. A narrow footpath 



