Page:Over fen and wold; (IA overfenwold00hissiala).pdf/31

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REMINISCENCES of Prince Houssain's carpet of Arabian Nights renown, for by their aid not only were we quickly transported to the distant shires, but we also turned back the hand of Time to the genial summer days, and, in spirit, were soon far away repeating our past rambles, afoot and awheel, along the bracken-*clad hillsides, over the smooth-turfed Downs, and across the rugged, boulder-strewn moors, here purple with heather and there aglow with golden gorse; anon we were strolling alongside the grassy banks of a certain quiet gliding river beloved of anglers, and spanned, just at a point where an artist would have placed it, by a hoary bridge built by craftsmen dead and gone to dust long centuries ago. Then, bringing forcibly to mind the old beloved coaching days, came a weather-stained hostelry with its great sign-board still swinging as of yore on the top of a high post, and bearing the representation—rude but effective—of a ferocious-looking red lion that one well-remembered summer evening bade us two tired and dust-stained travellers a hearty heraldic welcome. Next we found ourselves wandering down a narrow valley made musical by a little stream tumbling and gambolling over its rocky bed (for the sketches revealed to the mind infinitely more than what the eye merely saw, recalling Nature's sweet melodies, her songs without words, as well as her visible beauties; besides raising within one countless half-forgotten memories)—a stream that turned the great green droning wheel of an ancient water-mill, down to which on either hand gently sloped the wooded hills, and amidst the foliage, half drowned