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 weeds 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, 



