thinking nor fog conduced to seeing where I was going; and
when my ankle began to give out, and I was going to turn, I ran into a
hedge, which, looming through the mist, I had been taking for a fine
range of distant mountains--rather my way of dealing with other
objects. Being without a horse on whose neck to lay the reins, I could
only coast the hedge, hoping it might lead me back to Oakstead Park,
which I had abandoned in my craving for space and dread of being dogged
by the Ensign. But the treacherous hedge led me nowhere but to a
horsepond; and when I had struggled out of the adjacent mire, and
attained a rising ground, I could only see about four yards square of
bare down, all the rest being grey fog. Altogether, the scene was
worth something. I heard what I thought the tinkling of a sheep bell
through the cloud, which dulled the sound like cotton wool; I pursued
the call, when anon, the veil began to grow thin, and revealed, looking
just like a transparency, a glimpse of a little village in a valley
almost under my feet, trees, river, church-spire and all, and the bell
became clearer, and showed me what kind of flock it was meant for. I
turned that way, and had just found a path leading down the steep, when
down closed the cloud--a natural dissolving view--leaving me wondering
whether it had been mirage or imagination, till presently, the curtain
drew up in earnest. Out came, not merely form, but colour, as I have
seen a camera clear itself--blue sky, purple hills, russet and orange
woods, a great elm green picked out with yellow, a mass of brown oaks,
a scarlet maple, a beech grove, skirting a brilliant water meadow, with
a most reflective stream running through it, and giving occasion for a
single arched bridge, and a water mill, with a wheel draperied with
white foam; two swans disporting on the water (I would not declare they
were not geese), a few cottony flakes of mist hanging over damp
corners, the hill rising green, with the bright whitewashed cottages of
this district, on the side a rich, red, sandstone-coloured church, late
architecture, tower rather mouldering--all the more picturesque;
churchyard, all white headstones and ochreous sheep, surmounted by a
mushroom-shaped dark yew tree, railed in with intensely white rails,
the whole glowing in the parting coup-de-soleil of a wet day, every
tear of every leaf glistening, and everything indescribably lustrous.
It is a picture that one's mental photogr