1 78 IRature StuMee in Berksbire* 



which always mean foul business. For two days 

 they hurried by in solid masses which never broke 

 and scarcely thinned out. And all the time, hour 

 after hour, in monotonous persistency, the pour- 

 ing rain hurled its drench upon the soaking earth, 

 till the mowing-fields were lakes, and the brooks 

 were rivers, and the rivers grew to Amazons and 

 Mississippis. 



On the third morning the wind had swung into 

 the north-west. The clear blue sky gleamed through 

 the clouds, which had thinned out into a single 

 thickness of woolly cumulus. The cool wind kept 

 the clouds apart, the channels of the upper deep 

 were fairly clear, and we could see and enjoy each 

 particular cloud, as it hurried past, creamy white in 

 its grand central masses, fraying out all the time into 

 mere ravellings of vapour, through which the blue 

 on which it floated appeared in ever-growing ex- 

 panses. But toward evening the wind subsided, 

 and the strong sunbeams drew up more vapour which 

 the chill of the upper air turned into more clouds, 

 and this new supply came down-stream with the 

 wind, and the presence of the twilight chill squeezed 

 new showers out of them. Thus the day closed with 

 most brilliant effects,— squalls of rain on distant hills, 

 contrasting with a serene gold and crimson sunset ; 

 a dark wind-cloud over the mountain to the south- 

 west, and pink-topped domes of cumulus in the 

 south ; finally, deep-grey curtaining clouds all over 

 the heavens, and an evening without a star. 



