THE LAND OF BLACKBERRIES. 125 
again, richer, larger, and more pregnant with the cool 
mulberry flavour of any yet. Appetite grows keen, and 
we feel that we could eat all the woods contain, they are 
so grateful and delicious. 
Alternating with Blackberries are crab-trees, loaded 
with fairy fruit; then clumps of willow-herbs, here 
covered with rich purple blossoms, there powdered wflth 
downy seeds, then again, St. JohnVwort, then blue 
scabious, and then broad flushing sheets of crimson 
lythrum . Blackberries again and again, and stomachs 
and baskets are filled to repletion. The robins, and 
chaffinches, and willow wrens, flutter and sing, and chirp 
about us; and now and then the rabbit limps along 
through the brown brake, and the partridges run to 
cover. Between the singing and chirping of the birds, 
and the flutter of the wood-pigeoAs wing, there is an 
occasional pause—a dead stillness—which is so solemn, 
so palpable to the sense, which has been all but stunned 
by the fret and din of cities, that it begets fear, and we 
tremble lest the rest-harrow which blooms on the bank 
should convert its spines into spears, and threaten us; 
or that the earth should gape and let forth some monster 
of malignity, such as the knights encountered in the 
olden time. Silence is new to man, and as strange as it 
is new; it is the searching and listening of the suspended 
sense which begets the mysterious feeling which accom¬ 
panies it, and when it comes upon us in the world of 
green moss, and crushed leaves, and tangled branches, 
and Blackberries, w r e feel that we are alone with God, 
and come nearer to Him in the solitudes, and the silence 
becomes a new voice, whispering of trust, and faith, and 
