WINDS OF HEAVEN. 43 



till it struck the house on the hill. Thud ! thud ! as if 

 it were iron and not air. I looked from the window, and 

 the bright morning star was shining — the sky was full of 

 the wind and the star. As light came, the thud, thud 

 sunk away, and nothing remained but the whoo-hoo-hoo 

 of the keyhole and the moan of the chimney. These 

 did not leave us ; for four days and nights the whoo-hoo- 

 hoo-whoo never ceased a moment. Whoo-hoo ! whoo ! 

 and this is the wind on the hill indoors. 



Out of doors, sometimes in the morning, deep in the 

 valley, over the tree-tops of the forest, there stays a 

 vapour, lit up within by sunlight. A glory hovers over 

 the oaks — a cloud of light hundreds of feet thick, the 

 air made visible by surcharge and heaviness of sunbeams, 

 pressed together till you can see them in themselves and 

 not reflected. The cloud slants down the sloping wood, 

 till in a moment it is gone, and the beams are now 

 focussed in the depth of the narrow valley. The mirror 

 has been tilted, and the glow has shifted ; in a moment 

 more it has vanished into space, and the dream has gone 

 from the wood. In the arms of the wind, vast bundles 

 of mist are borne against the hill ; they widen and slip, 

 and lengthen, drawing out ; the wind works quickly 

 with moist colours ready and a wide brush laying broadly. 

 Colour comes up in the wind ; the thin mist disappears, 

 drunk up in the grass and trees, and the air is full of 

 blue behind the vapour. Blue sky at the far horizon — 

 rich deep blue overhead — a dark-brown blue deep yonder 

 in the gorge among the trees. I feel a sense of blue 

 colour as I face the strong breeze ; the vibration and 

 blow of its force answer to that hue, the sound of the 

 swinging branches and the rush — rush in the grass is 

 azure in its note ; it is wind-blue, not the night-blue, or 

 heaven-blue, a colour of air. To see the colour of the 



