Past the barley that came down to the willows by the shore--ripe and
white under the bright sunshine, but yonder beneath the shadow of the
elms with a pale tint of amber. Past broad rising meadows, where under
the oaks on the upper ground the cattle were idly lying out of the
sultry heat.
Then the barren islands, strewn with stone and mussel-shells glistening
in the sunshine, over which in a gale the waves made a clean sweep,
rendered the navigation intricate; and the vessel had to be worked in
and out, now scraping against rocky walls of sandstone, now grounding
and churning up the bottom, till presently she floated in the bay
beneath the firs. There a dark shadow hung over the black water--still
and silent, so still that even the aspens rested from their rustling.
Out again into the sunshine by the wide mouth of the Green River, as the
chart named the brook whose level stream scarce moved into the lake. A
streak of blue shot up it between the banks, and a shrill pipe came back
as the kingfisher hastened away. By the huge boulder of sarsen, whose
shoulder projected but a few inches--in stormy times a dangerous rock to
mariners--and then into the unknown narrow seas between the endless
osier-beds and withy-covered isles.
There the chart failed; and the known landmarks across the open
waters--the firs and elms, the green knoll with the cattle--were shut
out by thick branches on either hand.
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