A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 131 



wholly pure, shall I say? for my neighbours 

 whose mowing-machines sounded in my ears all 

 the day. 



As I saunter up the broad path of the garden, 

 with Zero at heel alas! Zero, you come to heel 

 all too readily, at whiles, and your gait is a trifle 

 old-gentlemanly I would like to tell the sunburnt 

 greenery to hold out ever so little longer, for a 

 soft veil has been swiftly let down over the village 

 and the further woods, and there is a sound of 

 abundance of rain. I hear it and the wind it brings 

 coming up the hill from copse to copse, till at last 

 it fills the garden and strikes the firs into the 

 pleasantest music they have made this year. I stand 

 face up to the pelt until the rich reek of the thirsty 

 soil fills my nostrils, and I am driven in by the 

 increasing flood. Half the night, waking to listen, 

 I hear in a sleepy content the multitudinous voices 

 of the rain, the murmur of the garden, the gush of 

 drops against the window, the bubble of all the 

 eave-shoots running full and over. The thought 

 of to-morrow morning is a recurring pleasure; the 

 end of labours with the water-can, when every fibre 

 and cell that grows will visibly rejoice in its refreshing, 

 not merely the pegged verbenas and the carnation 

 seedlings, but every hedge leaf and roadside weed 



