London to John O 1 Groat's. 215 



thatched roof, and it was the most easy and natural 

 thing in the world for the fancies of the midnight 

 hour to turn that thatching into hair, and to cheat 

 my willing mind with the delusion that I was sleep- 

 ing with the long, soft tresses of Her Submarine 

 Ladyship wound around my head. It was a delight- 

 ful vagary of the imagination, which the morning 

 light, looking in through the little checker-work 

 window, gently dispelled. 



The next day I bent my course in a northwesterly 

 direction, and passed through a very fertile and 

 beautiful section. The scenery was truly delightful ; 

 not grand nor splendid, but replete with quiet 

 pictures that please the eye and touch the heart 

 with a sense of gladness. The soft mosaic work of 

 the gently rounded hills, or figures wrought in wheat, 

 barley, oats, beans, turnips, and meadow and pasture 

 land, and grouped into landscapes in endless alterna- 

 tion of lights and shades, and all this happy little 

 world now veiled by the low, summer clouds, now 

 flooded by a sunburst between them all these lovely 

 and changing sceneries made my walk like one 

 through a continuous gallery of paintings. 



Harvesting had commenced in real earnest, and 

 the wheatfields were full of reapers, some wielding 

 the sickle, others the scythe. When I saw men and 



