rises more abruptly on the other side into the wilder ridges of the dark—almost black—native forest. I sat down in a warm nook, sheltered by the rough gold-work of the furze, and took out a book, while the children scattered about looking for the tiny milk-hued parasols of mushrooms, and the pony browsed contentedly close at hand. I almost think I must have been asleep, like the valley. I thought I was in church; I seemed to hear voices, or rather a voice of someone preaching at a little distance, and after a few moments I turned round and saw Reggie and his sister standing close together and listening open-mouthed to the address of an itinerant preacher, who had collected half-a-dozen listeners from the furze-embossed slopes and small farms about. They were probably Scandinavians (commonly called Scandys), who have a small settlement hereabout, and they all listened with a stolid, but respectful attention, like that of intelligent collie dogs in church, to his discourse. The children were evidently fascinated, whether by the Bohemian style of church service or from an inward conviction that these religious exercises might be forbidden by authority, I cannot say; but they gazed on the preacher—a dark-bearded sailor-looking old man, with a fine, worn face, hair ‘sable-silvered,’ and a wooden leg—as if he were
