iseless saw; and then a
larger wedge. See how the branches tremble! Hark how the trunk begins
to crack! Another stroke of the huge hammer on the wedge, and the tree
quivers, as with a mortal agony, shakes, reels, and falls. How slow,
and solemn, and awful it is! How like to death, to human death in its
grandest form! Caesar in the Capitol, Seneca in the bath, could not fall
more sublimely than that oak.

Even the heavens seem to sympathise with the devastation. The clouds
have gathered into one thick low canopy, dark and vapoury as the smoke
which overhangs London; the setting sun is just gleaming underneath with
a dim and bloody glare, and the crimson rays spreading upward with a
lurid and portentous grandeur, a subdued and dusky glow, like the light
reflected on the sky from some vast conflagration. The deep flush fades
away, and the rain begins to descend; and we hurry homeward rapidly, yet
sadly, forgetful alike of the flowers, the hedgehog, and the wetting,
thinking and talking only of the fallen tree.

THE DELL.

May 2nd.--A delicious evening;--bright sunshine; light summer air; a sky
almost cloudless; and a fresh yet delicate verdure on the hedges and
in the fields;--an evening that seems made for a visit to my
newly-discovered haunt, the mossy dell, one of the most beautiful spots
in the neighbourhood, which after passing, times out of number, the
field which it terminates, we found out about two months ago from the
accident of May's killing a rabbit there. May has had a fancy for the
place ever since; and so have I.

Thither accordingly we bend our way;--through the village;--up the
hill;--along the common;--past the avenue;--across the bridge; and by
the hill. How deserted the road is to-night! We have not seen a single
acquaintance, except poor blind Robert, laden with his sack of grass
plucked from the hedges, and the little boy that leads him. A singular
division of labour! Little Jem guides Robert to the spots where the long
grass grows, and tells him where it is most plentiful; and then the old
man cuts it close to the roots, and between them they fill the sack, and
sell the contents in the village. Half the cows in the street--for our
baker, our wheelwright, and our shoemaker has each his Alderney--owe the
best part of their maintenance to blind Robert's industry.

Here we are at the entrance of the cornfield which leads to the dell,
and which commands so fine a view of the Loddon, the mill, t