SUMMER IN SOMERSET. 275 
resound musically as the water strikes them. Ferns are 
growing so thickly in the hedge that soon it will seem 
composed of their fronds; the first June rose hangs 
above their green tips. A water-ousel with white breast 
rises and flies on; again disturbed, he makes a circle, 
and returns to the stream behind. On the moist earth 
there is the print of a hare’s pad ; here is a foxglove out 
in flower ; and now as the incline rises heather thickens 
on the slope. Sometimes we wander beside the stream- 
let which goes a mile into the coombe—the shadow is 
deep and cool in the vast groove of the hill, the shadow 
accumulates there, and is pressed by its own weight— 
up slowly as far as the ‘sog,’ or peaty place where the 
spring rises, and where the sundew grows. Somctimes 
climbing steep and rocky walls—scarce sprinkled with’ 
grass—we pause every other minute to look down on 
the great valley which reaches across to Dunkery. 
The horned sheep, which are practically wild, like wild 
creatures, have worn out holes for themselves to lie 
in beside the hill. If resolution is strong, we move 
through the dark heather (soon to be purple), startling 
the heath-poults, or black game, till at last the Channel 
opens, and the far-distant Flat and Steep Holms lic, as 
it looks, afloat on the dim sea. This is labour enough ; 
stern indeed must be the mind that could work at sum- 
mer’s noon in Somerset, when the apple vineyards slum- 
ber ; when the tall foxgloves stand in the heavy heat and 
the soft air warms the deepest day-shadow so that 
nothing is cool to the touch but the ferns. Is there 
anything so good as to do nothing? 
Fame travels slowly up these breathless hills, and 
pauses overcome in the heated hollow lanes. A 
famous wit of European reputation, when living, resided 
in Somerset. A traveller one day chancing tu pass 
T2 
