246 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
perse them, and is hidden again, as a bigger cloud than 
the rest comes to the rescue, and by his huge rolling pre¬ 
sence proclaims that Aquarius is in the ascendant. I have 
been scorched several times, yet was too indolent to roll 
myself a little further on into the shade; now, I see, I 
shall be wetted to the skin, for the first drops are splash¬ 
ing on the large leaves cf the plane tree overhead, and 
there is a lull of the western breezes, ominous of heavy 
rain. But I can still play my perverse part in resisting 
the impulse to action, and be the more perverse, because 
at this moment there is a general w T hirr of wings, a 
greater bustle among the bees; the gardener has tied 
his bunch of bast to the branch of a tree, and has run 
for his jacket. All that I shall do in this emergency 
will be to creep into yonder root-house, and there repose 
again, lulled by the music of the shower and the fresh 
odours of the mignonette. Now, it is coming down in 
earnest, and I am safe. Happy man, to be compelled 
to quit the soft turf for the rough seat among ferns and 
waving grasses; for, unless I had done so, I should 
have missed a spectacle that one might honestly quit 
almost any task to see, and that is, the Rainbow. The 
sun has gone so far dowm, and my position is so far 
elevated, that I see the entire bow as it dips down on 
either hand, and suggests the idea that I have before me 
a gigantic circle of colours, the lower half of which is 
hidden by the earth; so that if I could travel with the 
speed of lightning I might, on the far horizon, behold 
it dipping into space, and completing its 360 degrees, 
like the orbit of a planet. 
It is not the first time I have seen a rainbow, yet it 
