260 A Walk from 



CHAPTER XIII. 



WALK TO OAKHAM THE ENGLISH AND AMERICAN SPRING THE ENGLISH 



GENTRY A SPECIMEN OF THE CLASS MELTON MOWBRAY AND ITS 



SPECIALITIES BELVOIR VALE AND ITS BEAUTY THOUGHTS ON THE 



BLIND PAINTER. 



T.1EOM Stamford to Oakham was an afternoon walk 

 _|_ which I greatly enjoyed. This was the first 

 week of harvest, and the first of August. How won- 

 derfully the seasons are localised and subdivided ! 

 How diversified is the economy of light and heat ! 

 That field of wheat, thick, tall and ripe for the sickle, 

 was green and apparently growing through all the 

 months of last winter. What a phenomenon would 

 it have been, on the first of February last, to a New 

 England farmer, suddenly transported from his snow- 

 buried hills to the view of this landscape the same day ! 

 Not a spire of grass or grain was alive when he left 

 his own homestead. All was cold and dead. The 

 very earth was frozen to the solidity and sound of 

 granite. It was a relief to his eye to see the snow 

 fall upon the scene and hide it two feet deep for 

 months. He looks upon this, then upon the one he 



