the air above or below. Next morning the change had come. The wind
had backed to the south, and a storm from the Channel was raging
with torrents of warm rain. O the day that followed! Massive April
clouds hung in the air. How much the want of visible support adds
to their charm! One enormous cloud, with its base nearly on the
horizon, rose up forty-five degrees or so towards the zenith. Its
weight looked tremendous, but it floated lightly in the blue which
encompassed it. Towards the centre it was swollen and dark, but its
edges were dazzling white. While I was watching it, it went away to
the east and partly broke up. A new cloud, like and not like,
succeeded it . . . I followed the lane, stopped for a few minutes at
a corner where the grassy road-margin widens out near the tumble-
down barn, looked over the gate westward across the valley to the
hills beyond, and then went down to the brook that winds along the
bottom. It runs in a course which it has cut for itself, and is
flanked on either side by delicately-carved miniature cliffs of
yellow sandstone overhung with broom and furze. It was full of pure
glittering moor-water, which seemed to add light to the stones in
its bed, so brilliant was their colour. It fell with incessant,
rippling murmur over its little ledges, gathering itself up into
pools between each, and so it went on to the mill-pond a mile away.
Close to me a blackbird was building her nest. She moved when I
peeped at her, but presently returned. Her back was struck by the
warm sun and was glossy in its rays. A scramble of half a mile up a
rough track brought me to the common, and there, thirty miles
distant, lay the chalk downs, unsubstantial, a light-blue mist.

Youth with its heat in the blood may be more capable of exultation
at this season, but to the old man it brings the sounder hope and
deeper joy.