A REAL SUMMER'S DAY. 
WEST AYTON, JUNE oth, 1892. 
Rev. W. C. HEY, M.A., M.C.S.., 
Vice-President of the Vork Philosophical Society, West Ayton, near Scarborough. 
Licut, “marvellous light,” on meadows that are sheets of burnished 
gold, so thickly grow the buttercups; light, “ marvellous light,” 
falling in a myriad dancing points upon the rippling river ; light, 
‘marvellous light,” on the fluttering leaves, and the hedges loaded 
with the summer snow of hawthorn bloom, and the fields of young 
corn, and the golden waterfalls of laburnum dripping from the 
cottage gardens over the white roads. I pass into the pastures, 
where the cattle-ponds are slowly being absorbed by the glowing 
heat, and again the marvel of the sunlight is everywhere—on the 
purple satin of the hawking swallow, and on the glittering gauze of 
the dragon-fly’s wing, and on the twinkling flowers of white crow- 
foot that nearly hide the water where they grow, and on the dazzling 
coppery beetles that dart, and pause, and dart again on the wet 
margin of the pool. I climb the hill where the cattle are grazing, 
and again the marvel of the light—on the red-backed cows, and the 
black horses, and the white sheep ; on the thousand swift-borne flies 
that glance and pass; on the vibrating wings of Painted-Lady 
butterflies, and the silver cups of the saxifrage flowers. I steal on 
into the wood, and again the marvel of the light, seen through the 
yet transparent leaves of the oak and the maple, silvering the white 
tufts of the garlic flowers, elaborating a wondrous dance in the 
twinkling shadows of the thin foliage upon the mossy ground 
beneath, drawing pungent odours from the shooting pines and idle 
perfume from the hawthorn and fading bluebells. I stray back into 
the garden, and again the marvel of the light on scarlet poppy-petals 
and blue-black poppy-stamens, on sheets of rosy sea-pinks, an 
a thousand waving Pyrethrums, on glowing Peeony and waving Irs, 
on every insect that hovers poised above the flowers, or stops to rifle 
their honey. I move on into the paddock, where the Umbellifers 
rise breast high against the old stone walls, and speedwell-flowers 
twinkle innumerable—blue stars in a lush green sky—foot-gilt, a8 
I walk, with the pollen of innumerable buttercups ; and whether 
I look up or down or around, everywhere the marvel of the light. AL 
earth and all the air full of light—Nature’s Grand Illumination Dey: 
ie 
