The landscape to-day was dark with a sort of indigo-blue shadows;
the clouds above big and threatening, as though they were nursing the
thunder--the distance veiled in a blue-grey haze. Field after field,
with here and there a clump of trees, ran out to the far horizon. A
partridge chirred softly in the pastures up above me, and a wild
screaming of sparrows came at intervals from a thorn-thicket, where
they seemed to be holding a fierce and disorderly meeting.
I should like to be able to recover the thread of my thoughts in that
quiet grassy place, because they ran on with an equable sparkle, quite
without cause or reason. I had nothing particularly pleasing to think
about; but the mood of retrospect and anticipation seemed to ramble
about, picking sweet-smelling flowers from the past and future alike. I
seemed to desire nothing and to regret nothing. My cup was full of a
pleasant beverage, neither cloying nor intoxicating, and the glad
spring-time tempered it nicely to my taste. There seemed to brood in
the air a quiet benevolence as of a Father watching His myriad children
at play; and yet as I saw a big blackbird, with a solemn eye, hop round
a thorn-bush with a writhing worm festooned round his beak, I realised
that the play was a deadly tragedy to some of the actors. I suppose
that such thoughts ought to have ruffled the tranquil mood, but they
did not, for the whole seemed so complete.
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