258 THE DARYL IN MAY. 



glade a close of green grass, with an ink 

 black pond in the centre of it. Is that the 

 shout of the cuckoo ? No ; if you listen more 

 attentively yon recognise the purring of the 

 pigeon, " the moan of the dove in some im- 

 memorial elm," expressing the quiet brooding 

 ecstasy of intense inarticulate love. The shower 

 that we met has left millions of flashing dia- 

 monds on the trembling gateway of lindens, 

 opening again into the recesses of Glendaryl. 

 And the Daryl is quite another river here. 

 It has a mysterious, unceasing conversation 

 with itself, and if you stop fishing for a second, 

 perhaps you find words for that never ending 

 song that goes on without any. At times it 

 gossips in a snappish, shrewish fashion with a 

 sturdy boulder ; anon it dashes down a lane of 

 thick branches, threatening and bragging like 

 a man who is in a passion and afraid of his 

 enemy. You come across it in quite another 

 mood where it glides smoothly, with just an 

 odd word or so of greeting to a stooping wil- 

 low or a friendly chuckle with a bunch of 

 reeds, and then, grave and decorous as a hooded 

 nun or gloomy trappist, the Daryl enters its 



