eorology. He could
remember the high price of wheat during the war which ended at
Waterloo, and how his old master, the grandfather of the tenant of the
farm in my time, would stand by the men in the barn as they measured
up the wheat, bushel by bushel, to fill the sacks, and exclaim as each
bushel was poured in, "There goes another guinea, boys!" This would
make the price 168s. a quarter; I find the average recorded for 1812
was 126s. 6d., so that it is quite possible that for a time in that
year in places 168s. was realized; which leaves us little to grumble
at in the price of 80s. during the greatest war in history.

His horizon must have been considerably widened by his brief visit to
London; previous to that event it might have been nearly as extensive
as that of the hero of a recent story of Pwllheli. Meeting a crony in
the town, he remarked that the streets of London would be pretty
crowded that day. "How's that?" said his friend. "Why, there's a trip
train gone up to-day with fourteen people from Pwllheli!"

Bredon Hill, in the Vale of Evesham, is the direction in which many
people look for hints of coming changes of weather.

"When Bredon Hill puts on his cap
Ye men of the vale beware of that"

is a well-known proverb referring to the dark curtain of rain clouds
obscuring the top, which is generally followed by heavy rain and
floods in the Avon meadows and those of all the little streams which
join that river. The same purple curtain can be seen on the Cotswolds
above Broadway, and is likewise the forerunner of floods in the Vale:

"When you see the rain on the hills
You'll shortly find it down by the mills."

There is, too, the beautiful blue hazy distance one sees in very fine
weather, which gives a feeling of mystery and remoteness and
unexplored possibilities. I lately read somewhere of a man who had
passed his life without leaving his native village, though he had
often looked far away into the blue distance, and longed to start upon
a journey of discovery; for its invitation seemed an assurance that in
such beauty there must be something better than he had ever
experienced in his own home. There came a day when the appeal was so
insistent that he braced himself to the effort, and after many weary
miles reached the place of his dreams, only to find that the blue
distance had disappeared. Meeting a passer-by he told him of his
journey and its object, and of his disappointment, "Lo