The level ground
at the bottom of the valley where the Moesa runs is cultivated with
great care. Here the people have gathered the stones in heaps
round any great rock which is too difficult to move, and the whole
mass has in time taken a mulberry hue, varied with gray and russet
lichens, or blobs of velvety green moss. These heaps of stone crop
up from the smooth shaven grass, and are overhung with barberries,
mountain ash, and mountain elder with their brilliant scarlet
berries--sometimes, again, with dwarf oaks, or alder, or nut, whose
leaves have just so far begun to be tinged as to increase the
variety of the colouring. The first sparks of autumn's yearly
conflagration have been kindled, but the fire is not yet raging as
in October; soon after which, indeed, it will have burnt itself
out, leaving the trees it were charred, with here and there a live
coal of a red leaf or two still smouldering upon them.
As yet lingering mulleins throw up their golden spikes amid a
profusion of blue chicory, and the gourds run along upon the ground
like the fire mingled with the hail in "Israel in Egypt." Overhead
are the umbrageous chestnuts loaded with their prickly harvest.
Now and again there is a manure heap upon the grass itself, and
lusty wanton gourds grow out from it along the ground like
vegetable octopi. If there is a stream it will run with water
limpid as air, and as full of dimples as "While Kedron's brook" in
"Joshua":-
[At this point in the book a music score is given]
How quiet and full of rest does everything appear to be.
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