82 NATURAL HISTORY 



on the grass as we passed onward through the 

 fields ; but the sun rose in a clear atmosphere, and 

 the day mellowed, as it advanced, into one of those 

 delightful days of early spring, which give so pleas- 

 ing an earnest of whatsoever is mild and genial in 

 the better half of the year. All the workmen rested 

 at mid-day, and I went to enjoy my half-hour alone 

 on a mossy knoll in the neighboring wood, which 

 commands through the trees a wide prospect of the 

 bay and the opposite shore. There was not a wrin- 

 kle on the water, not a cloud in the sky, and the 

 branches were as moveless in the calm as if they 

 had been traced on canvas. From a wooded 

 promontory that stretches half way across the frith, 

 there ascended a thin column of smoke. It rose 

 straight as the line of a plummet for more than a 

 thousand yards, and then on reaching a thinner 

 stratum of air, spread out equally on every side, like 

 the foliage of a stately tree. Ben Nevis rose to the 

 west, white with the yet unwasted snows of winter, 

 and as sharply denned in the clear atmosphere, as if 

 all its sunny slopes and blue retiring hollows had 

 been chiseled in marble." .... 



