A glorious afternoon it is, the hottest of midsummer, with not a shadow in the dazzling blue of the heavens. Who could sit at a desk, with the white butterflies flickering in and out at the open window, the sweet breath of the clove-pinks filling the air, and the faint gurgle of the river coming up from the glen below? The gardener has long ago left off weeding the lawn borders, and betaken himself to the cool planting-house; Jug the spaniel lies panting out there, with lolling tongue, in the shadow under the rhododendrons; and the leaves of the aspens themselves seem tremulous with the heat. It will be pleasanter to go up through the wood to the end of the lane, to sit under the edge of the trees there on the trunk of silver birch that serves for a cattle-gate, and enjoy something of the southern _dolce far niente_, with a pocket copy of gentle Allan Ramsay to finger through.
Altogether quiet the spot is, with the wood behind, and the flowery fields sloping away in front. Not a murmur comes here from the city, whose smoke rises, a murky cloud, far off in the valley below. The streets there will be stifling to-day amid the hot reekings of asphalt pavements, the sifting particles of burning dust, and the incessant roar of traffic. Here, above the fields, the air is sweet with the scent of clover; the stillness is only broken by the faint pipe of a yellowhammer sometimes in the depth of the wood; and the blue heavens shed their peace upon the heart. Nothing but the faintest breath of air is moving, just enough to stir gently the deep grasses of the hayfield, and to touch cheek and lip now and again with the soft warm sigh of the sweetbrier in the hedge. Gleaming flies, green and yellow, with gauzy wings, float like jewels in the sunshine; a shadow for a moment touches the page as a stray rook drifts silently overhead; and on the edge of the great yellow daisy that flames over there like a topaz among the corn, a blue butterfly lazily opens and shuts its wings.
This is the silent month, they say, because the birds have nested and foregone the twitterings of their courting-time; but from the lark up aloft, a quivering black speck in the sky, there is falling a perfect rill of melody. What is he exulting about, the little black speck? Is it for sheer gladsomeness in the happy sunshine, or is it because there is a little helpless brood of callow laverocks in a nest somewhere below among the clover? Glad little heart! sing thy song out while the blue sky smiles above thee. Thou hast forgotten the pinching of the winter cold, and why should thy rapturous hour be saddened by taking thought for the dark things of the morrow. Under the hedge close by, an occasional rustle of dry leaves and an admonitory cluck betray a brood of chickens surreptitiously brought into existence by some lawless and absconding hen; and on a twig a little way off, a young sparrow with fluttering wings gapes its yellow beak for the attentions of a proud and sprightly parent.