Close at hand, where the stream wandered babbling at her feet,
the whole glory of spring shone on blossoms and grasses where the world of
the stream-side sent forth a warm, living smell. The wildness of the upland
moors stretched down into the valley below them. There glimmered blue-green
patches of bracken, speckled with the red and white hides of calves which
fed and scampered dew-lap deep; and the fern was all sheened with light
where the sunshine brightened its polished leaves. The stream wound through
the midst, bedecked and adorned with purple bugle flowers, bridged with
dog-roses and honeysuckles, in festoons, in bunches and in sprays, crowned
with scented gorse, fringed with yellow irises which splashed flaming
reflections where the brook widened and slowed into shallow little
backwaters. Flags and cresses framed the margins; meadowsweets made the air
fragrant above, and granite bowlders fretted the waters silver, their
foundations hidden in dark water-weed. Sunshine danced on every tiny
cascade and threw stars and twinkling flashes of light upward from the
brown pools upon the banks. Everything was upon a miniature scale, even to
the trout which lived in the stream, flashed their dim shadows under its
waters, leaped into the air after the flies, set little clouds of sand
shimmering as they darted up and down or, when surprised, wriggled away
into favorite holes and hiding places beneath the banks and trailing weeds.
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