RAMBLES IN SEARCH OF FERNS. 
CHAPTER I. 
“ On every side spring ferns, whose feathery loaves 
Seem wafted by the perpetual breath of God.” 
A long holiday was before me, which I was going to spend in various 
visits among friends and relatives in different parts of England. I 
was very anxious to gain some improvement during this “ play time,” 
— something that in future periods of sickness or weariness might be a 
resource to me ; but in what direction I should seek this advantage I 
found it difficult to decide. As the railway train sped onward, 
bearing me far from the great capital, I continued to revolve various 
plans in my mind, but I reached my journey’s end — a sequestered 
domicile in one of the most remote of the Yorkshire dales — before 
coming to a decision. The long drive in the dark from the railway 
terminus had left me in total ignorance of the sort of country I was 
visiting ; so it was with eager curiosity that I drew up my blind on first 
awaking in the morning. The window commanded a view of a wide 
valley, the prevailing feature of which was far- spreading moors. On 
the hill sides were deep clefts, where noisy brooks foamed down and 
nourished birch woods along their banks. Three villages and two 
churches were visible on the left, while on the right the valley became 
more narrow, and the form of the country wilder. The river Swale 
wound serpent- like along the dale, and the morning sun turned its 
waters to gold. I stood for a time in a trance of delight, rejoicing in 
