orm
of sound. Walking past the church, I followed the streamlet that runs
through the town and out by a cleft between the hills to a narrow marshy
valley, on the other side of which are precipitous hills, clothed from
base to summit in oak woods. As I walked through the cleft the musical
roar of the bells followed, and was like a mighty current flowing
through and over me; but as I came out the sound from behind ceased
suddenly and was now in front, coming back from the hills before me. A
sound, but not the same--not a mere echo; and yet an echo it was, the
most wonderful I had ever heard. For now that great tempest of musical
noise, composed of a multitude of clanging notes with long vibrations,
overlapping and mingling and clashing together, seemed at the same time
one and many--that tempest from the tower which had mysteriously ceased
to be audible came back in strokes or notes distinct and separate and
multiplied many times. The sound, the echo, was distributed over the
whole face of the steep hill before me, and was changed in character,
and it was as if every one of those thousands of oak trees had a peal
of bells in it, and that they were raining that far-up bright spiritual
tree music down into the valley below. As I stood listening it seemed
to me that I had never heard anything so beautiful, nor had any man--not
the monk of Eynsham in that vision when he heard the Easter bells on
the holy Saturday evening, and described the sound as "a ringing of a
marvellous sweetness, as if all the bells in the world, or whatsoever is
of sounding, had been rung together at once."

Here, then, I had found and had become the possessor of something
priceless, since in that moment of surprise and delight the mysterious
beautiful sound, with the whole scene, had registered an impression
which would outlast all others received at that place, where I had
viewed all things with but languid interest. Had it not come as a
complete surprise, the emotion experienced and the resultant mental
image would not have been so vivid; as it is, I can mentally stand in
that valley when I will, seeing that green-wooded hill in front of me
and listen to that unearthly music.

Naturally, after quitting the spot, I looked at the first opportunity
into a guide-book of the district, only to find that it contained not
one word about those wonderful illusive sounds! The book-makers had not
done their work well, since it is a pleasure after having discov