Pages from a Journal with Other Papers | Page 6

horizon, and
although the waves at a distance cannot be distinguished, the tossing of
a solitary vessel labouring to get round the point for shelter shows how
vast they are. The prevailing colour of the water is greyish-green,
passing into deep-blue, and perpetually shifting in tint. A quarter of a
mile away the breakers begin, and spread themselves in a white sheet to
the land.
A couple of gulls rise from the base of the cliffs to a height of about a
hundred feet above them. They turn their heads to the south-west, and
hover like hawks, but without any visible movement of their wings.
They are followed by two more, who also poise themselves in the same
way. Presently all four mount higher, and again face the tempest. They
do not appear to defy it, nor even to exert themselves in resisting it.
What to us below is fierce opposition is to them a support and delight.
How these wonderful birds are able to accomplish this feat no
mathematician can tell us. After remaining stationary a few minutes,
they wheel round, once more ascend, and then without any effort go off
to sea directly in the teeth of the hurricane.

NOVEMBER

A November day at the end of the month--the country is left to those
who live in it. The scattered visitors who took lodgings in the summer
in the villages have all departed, and the recollection that they have
been here makes the solitude more complete. The woods in which they
wandered are impassable, for the rain has been heavy, and the dry,
baked clay of August has been turned into a slough a foot deep. The
wind, what there is of it, is from the south-west, soft, sweet and damp;

the sky is almost covered with bluish-grey clouds, which here and there
give way and permit a dim, watery gleam to float slowly over the
distant pastures. The grass for the most part is greyish-green, more grey
than green where it has not been mown, but on the rocky and broken
ground there is a colour like that of an emerald, and the low sun when it
comes out throws from the projections on the hillside long and
beautifully shaped shadows. Multitudes of gnats in these brief moments
of sunshine are seen playing in it. The leaves have not all fallen, down
in the hollow hardly any have gone, and the trees are still bossy, tinted
with the delicate yellowish-brown and brown of different stages of
decay. The hedges have been washed clean of the white dust; the roads
have been washed; a deep drain has just begun to trickle and on the
meadows lie little pools of the clearest rainwater, reflecting with added
loveliness any blue patch of the heavens disclosed above them. The
birds are silent save the jackdaws and the robin, who still sings his
recollections of the summer, or his anticipations of the spring, or
perhaps his pleasure in the late autumn. The finches are in flocks, and
whirl round in the air with graceful, shell-like convolutions as they
descend, part separating, for no reason apparently, and forming a
second flock which goes away over the copse. There is hardly any
farm-work going on, excepting in the ditches, which are being cleaned
in readiness for the overflow when the thirsty ground shall have sucked
its fill. Under a bank by the roadside a couple of men employed in
carting stone for road-mending are sitting on a sack eating their dinner.
The roof of the barn beyond them is brilliant with moss and lichens; it
has not been so vivid since last February. It is a delightful time. No
demand is made for ecstatic admiration; everything is at rest, nature has
nothing to do but to sleep and wait.

THE BREAK-UP OF A GREAT DROUGHT

For three months there had been hardly a drop of rain. The wind had
been almost continuously north-west, and from that to east.
Occasionally there were light airs from the south-west, and vapour rose,
but there was nothing in it; there was no true south-westerly breeze, and

in a few hours the weather-cock returned to the old quarter. Not
infrequently the clouds began to gather, and there was every sign that a
change was at hand. The barometer at these times fell gradually day
after day until at last it reached a point which generally brought
drenching storms, but none appeared, and then it began slowly to rise
again and we knew that our hopes were vain, and that a week at least
must elapse before it would regain its usual height and there might be a
chance of declining. At last the disappointment was so keen that the
instrument was removed. It was better not to