124 IDLEHURST: 



in the woods the oaks were being stripped by the 

 green caterpillar ; some copses were as bare as though 

 it were January. Nature was out of joint. The 

 harsh, dry air seemed to suck the generous humours 

 out of man, leaving him pithless and his works vain. 

 The elder has been in bloom for a week past, and 

 the rattle of the mowing-machines sounded all about 

 the valley, but none of the good associations of hay- 

 time were to be conjured up. By noon yesterday 

 the barometer had crept down to " change," and the 

 sky wore a hopeful look, even to the oft-deceived and 

 sceptic eye. In the dull heat, vast fans of thin white 

 cloud spread slowly out of the south ; along the 

 western horizon lay a company of fantastic little 

 tossed-up vapours, unquiet and thundery. During 

 the afternoon a grey-barred canopy of cirrus rose 

 very slowly ; and by sunset heavy black wreaths of 

 cloud were drifting under a dome of thin ashen-grey. 

 At nightfall I went up to the top meadow to watch 

 the anxious course of things. The air was dead and 

 heavy as I stood by the gate and looked over the 

 cleared meadow, a grey-green, shadowless plane, 

 sharply cut by the black line of the hedges and the 

 solid darkness of the unstirred elms. Everything was 

 oppressively quiet ; there was no motion save the 

 slow shifting of the pendulous breasts of the clouds 



