RAIN GUAGES. 91 



as this that the truth of some of Wordsworth's 

 touches may be recognised, which are most amusing 

 to Cockney readers. Perhaps no passage has been 

 more ridiculed than that which tells of the " solemn 

 bleat" of 



" a lamb left somewhere to itself, 

 The plaintive spirit of the solitude." 



The laughers are thinking of a cattle-market, or a 

 flock of sheep on a dusty road ; and they know 

 nothing of the effect of a single bleat of a stray 

 lamb up on the mountains. If they had ever felt 

 the profound stillness of the higher fells, or heard 

 it broken by the plaintive cry, repeated and not 

 answered, they would be aware that there is a true 

 solemnity in the sound. 



Still further on, when the sheep are all left behind, 

 the stranger may see a hawk perched upon a great 

 boulder. He will see it take flight when he comes 

 near, and cleave the air below him, and hang above 

 the woods, — to the infinite terror, as he knows, 

 of many a small creature there, — and then whirl 

 away to some distant part of the Park. Perhaps 

 a heavy buzzard may rise, flapping from his nest 

 on the moor, or pounce from a crag in the direction 

 of any water-birds that may be about the springs 

 and pools in the hills. There is no sound, unless it 

 be the hum of the gnats in the hot sunshine. There 

 is an aged man in the district, however, who hears 

 more than this, and sees more than people would, 

 perhaps, imagine. An old shepherd has the charge 

 of four rain-guages which are set up on four ridges, 

 — desolate, misty spots, sometimes below and often 

 above the clouds. He visits each once a month, 

 find notes down what these guages record; and 



