and palace, and my embarkation causes quite a stir in the sleepy little
village. Small boys leave their games and mud-pies, and gather round
in silence; they have seen me get off a hundred times, but their
interest in the matter seems always new. Not unfrequently an idle
cobbler, in red night-cap and leathern apron, leans on a broken stile,
and honours my proceedings with his attention. I shoot off, and the
human knot dissolves. The lake contains three islands, each with a
solitary tree, and on these islands the swans breed. I feed the birds
daily with bits of bread. See, one comes gliding towards me, with
superbly arched neck, to receive its customary alms! How wildly
beautiful its motions! How haughtily it begs! The green pasture lands
run down to the edge of the water, and into it in the afternoons the
red kine wade and stand knee-deep in their shadows, surrounded by
troops of flies. Patiently the honest creatures abide the attacks of
their tormentors. Now one swishes itself with its tail,--now its
neighbour flaps a huge ear. I draw my oars alongside, and let my boat
float at its own will. The soft blue heavenly abysses, the wandering
streams of vapour, the long beaches of rippled clouds, are glassed and
repeated in the lake. Dreamthorp is silent as a picture, the voices of
the children are mute; and the smoke from the houses, the blue pillars
all sloping in one angle, float upward as if in sleep. Grave and stern
the old castle rises from its emerald banks, which long ago came down
to the lake in terrace on terrace, gay with fruits and flowers, and
with stone nymph and satyrs hid in every nook. Silent and empty enough
to-day! A flock of daws suddenly bursts out from a turret, and round
and round they wheel, as if in panic. Has some great scandal exploded?
Has a conspiracy been discovered? Has a revolution broken out? The
excitement has subsided, and one of them, perched on the old
banner-staff, chatters confidentially to himself as he, sideways, eyes
the world beneath him. Floating about thus, time passes swiftly, for,