find what we want. What is that shrill and monotonous “halloo!” far away to the right, but nearer and nearer, and alternating with a clapping sound? Charley rises in his stirrups and sees the bird-boy in the next field but one. The bird-boy was out of the question from the beginning, we admit, because of the dreary solitude of his life. Then the shepherd-boy must be excluded also,—far up in the hills. No; the shepherd-boy has his dog to converse with. He is not to be pitied at this time of year. There are children in rows in yonder field to the left,—what are they doing? They are giving the last weeding to the pea-crop; and, in the next field, older lads and lasses are thinning the turnips, work which requires more discretion than weeding. It is to be hoped they get used to the stooping; but in glaring sunshine it must be very trying; and in wet weather, it must be as dirty as the brick-field. Turning a wheel in shade and shelter might be preferable, we all agree. Even as we pace leisurely along, we find the heat rather an evil, and watch for the entrance of the wood into which we mean to turn.
We certainly do not agree in the complaint of the monotony of the foliage in July. There is scarcely a tree which has not interior beauties seen some way off by observing eyes. Not only are there many shades of the same tint when one looks up from below; but there are varying growths of the leaves of the present season which cast lights and shadows through and through the whole structure. Leaves and blossoms have gone on unfolding up to last week, though the great dome was covered in nearly two months since. In the same way I dispute the monotony of the open area of the land. We stop at the entrance of the wood to look over to the far horizon, and note the sameness or variety of the green. ” “Can green be more diversified?” we exclaim. Behind us there is a depth of shade that is almost black. Overhead, as we stand under the beeches, a green light is shed upon us, like that which we imagine at the bottom of the sea. Opposite is the deep green of the turnip-fields, and beyond them the more dusky hue of the unripe corn as it waves in the breeze. Then there is an expanse of lately-mown meadows of the brightest emerald tint, and on the hillside above is a fir-grove, made the more black by the breadths of yellow rye interspersed here and there. This is enough. We shall set up our testimony henceforth whenever July is reproached with the monotony of its colouring.
There are sounds of voices and implements in the depth of this wood; and here are more children at work. My boys had supposed all the cutting and barking in the woods would be over before their holidays; but they forgot the squire’s great birches, which annually afford work to the fellers and barkers till the 15th of July,—the day on which the last load must be carried, and the last chips cleared away.
As I am always ready to own, I never can get past that particular piece of rural business without a stop; and, as usual, we dismount to watch the proceedings. Boys come running to hold our horses or fasten them up; and we sit down in the shade. Bell, however, cannot make out what those children are about, sprawling on their stomachs at the roots of the trees in a glade which runs backward, and poking and stabbing the ground with old knives. They are digging for truffles; and Bell wants no better entertainment than to sit and watch them, and talk to them till summoned by me. Here, at last, is something as pleasant in its way as herb-gathering, only a yet more temporary resource. For the time, however, what can be pleasanter than spending the day in a wood, digging for truffles? At the end of a hot day, it must be pleasant to go forth into the next grass-field where mushrooms may be looked for. To be learned in fungi, which are more eaten, and in larger variety, every year, and to be trusted to bring only what is wholesome; to spend days in pleasant places, and find eager customers in the evenings, must be pleasant labour. So thinks Bell, as she sits at the foot of a beech, where the white butterflies are chasing one another up into the roof of the green tent: but at once the children scramble up, the horses stamp and struggle as if they would break their bridles, and the woodmen throw their axes and saws far from them in the grass. There has been a vivid flash of lightning, and a crash of thunder immediately follows, which makes the heart stop for the moment. It is wonderfully sudden: but we had not looked abroad for many minutes; and now that we do, we see the further region of the open country still lying in yellow sunshine, while a leaden gloom is hurrying thitherward from behind us. More lightning—forked, this time—and crash upon crash of thunder: and above it we hear the roar of the wind in the wood, and then the splash of the rain upon the roof-like foliage. All parties rush into one group, and the group rushes in the direction of the woodmen’s hut. The hut, which is only a structure of planks with a thatch of faggots, will not hold half of us. Bell is thrust in first, and her father and brother next, just as the first stream pours down from every tree. The children do not want shelter, and show signs of crying if forced to take it. To ride ponies is beyond their expectation; but to sit the ponies under the tree, in order to keep the saddles dry, seems now worth a dashing effort: and there they are, two on each steed, winking as the rain dashes in their faces, and the lightning dazzles their eyes, and spreading themselves and their poor clothing over the ponies’ backs so as to catch the utmost amount of wet. As the woodmen say, they would be wet at all events, and they are used to it; and they will fancy they get a ride by it. It is difficult to make the woodmen come in far enough; but we have insisted on their coats being brought in, and all who are in their shirt-sleeves coming in too.
Charles says he remarked the stillness of the wood, except for the noises we made, before the storm: but the men remind us that it is the still season, when no bird sings by day, so that the insects seem to have the covert to themselves, except when a leveret rustles in the fern, or the wood-pecker’s tap is heard from the far side of some great trunk. Except the constant yellow-