The Brook Path 173 



is at hand. Presently the brown cockchafers will 

 come almost like an army of locusts, as suddenly 

 appearing without a sign. They seem to be par- 

 ticularly numerous where there is much maple in the 

 hedges. 



Resting now on the sward by the stream — con- 

 tracted in seeming by the weeds and flags and fresh 

 sedges — there comes the distant murmur of voices and 

 the musical laugh of girls. The ear tries to distinguish 

 the words and gather the meaning ; but the syllables 

 are intertangled — it is like listening to a low sweet 

 song in a language all unknown. This is the water 

 falling gently over the mossy hatch and splashing 

 faintly on the stones beneath ; the blue dragon-flies 

 dart over the smooth surface or alight on a broad leaf 

 — these blue dragon-flies when thus resting curl the 

 tail upwards. 



Farther up above the mere there is a spot where 

 the pool itself ends, or rather imperceptibly disappears 

 among a vast mass of aquatic weeds. To these on 

 the soft oozy mud succeed acres of sedge and rush 

 and great tufts of greyish grass. Low willows are 

 scattered about, and alder at the edge and where the 

 ground is firmer. This is the home of the dragon-flies, 

 of the coots, whose white bald foreheads distinguish 

 them at a distance, and of the moorhens. 



