SEA, SKY, AND DOWN. 105 



will permit of nothing except hard exercise. Looking 

 back now and then, the distant hollows are sometimes 

 visible and sometimes filled; great curtains of mist 

 sweep along illumined by the sunlight above them ; 

 the woods are now brown, now dark, and now faintly 

 blue, as the light changes. Over the range and down 

 in the valley where the hursts or woods are situated, 

 surrounded by meads and cornfields, there are other 

 notes of colour to be found. In the leafless branches 

 of the oak sometimes the sunshine plays on the bark 

 of the smaller boughs, and causes a sense of light and 

 colour among them. The slender boughs of the birch, 

 too, reflect the sunshine as if polished. Beech leaves 

 still adhere to the lower branches, spots of bright 

 brown among the grey and ash tint of the under- 

 wood. If a woodpecker passes, his green plumage 

 gleams the more from the absence of the abundant 

 foliage which partly conceals even him in summer. 

 The light-coloured wood-pigeons show distinctly 

 against the dark firs; the golden crest of the tiny 

 wren is to be seen in the furze or bramble. 



All broader eff'ects of colour must in winter be looked 

 for in the atmosphere, as the light changes, as the mist 

 passes, as the north wind brings down a blackness, or 

 the gust dries up the furrow ; as the colour of the air 

 alters, for it is certain that the air is often £uU of 

 colour. To the atmosphere we must look for all 

 broader effects. Specks of detail may be sometimes 

 discerned, one or two in a walk, as the white breasts 

 of the lapwings on the dark ploughed ridges ; yellow 

 oat-straw by the farm, still retaining the golden tint 

 of summer; if fortunate, a blue kingfisher by the 

 brook, and always dew flashing emerald and ruby. 



