56 NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



caught up and played with the sound of the bubbles 

 as they broke. 



Beyond the green slope of corn, a thin, soft vapour 

 hung on the distant woods, and hid the hills. The 

 pale young leaves of the aspen rustled faintly, not yet 

 with their full sound ; the sprays of the horse-chest- 

 nut, drooping with the late frosts, could not yet keep 

 out the sunshine with their broad green. A white 

 spot on the footpath yonder was where the bloom had 

 fallen from a blackthorn bush. 



The note of the tree-pipit came from over the corn 

 there were some detached oaks away in the midst 

 of the field, and the birds were doubtless flying con- 

 tinually up and down between the wheat and the 

 branches. A willow-wren sang plaintively in the 

 plantation behind, and once a cuckoo called at a 

 distance. How beautiful is the sunshine ! The 

 very dust of the road at my feet seemed to glow 

 with whiteness, to be lit up by it, and to become 

 another thing. This spot henceforward was a place 

 of pilgrimage. 



Looking that morning over the parapet of the 

 bridge, down stream, there was a dead branch at the 

 mouth of the arch, it had caught and got fixed while 

 it floated along. A quantity of aquatic w r eeds coming 

 down the stream had drifted against the branch and 

 remained entangled in it. Fresh weeds were still 

 coming and adding to the mass, which had attracted 

 a water-rat. 



Perched on the branch the little brown creature 

 bent forward over the surface, and with its two fore- 

 paws drew towards it the slender thread of a weed, 



