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They had spent some time crossing a wide stretch of rolling country dotted with clumps of poplar and birch, which was still sparsely inhabited; and now they were compelled to pick their way among fallen branches and patches of muskeg, for the ground was marshy and their feet sank among the withered needles. Blake checked his pony and waited until Benson came up.
Little clumps of white froth floated fast by them, indicating the swift running of the water, and its disturbance. Then the stronger current caught them, and they barely forged ahead. By the appearance of the water, looking down upon it as they struggled, they seemed to be flying; but it was the water, and not they, that was moving rapidly.
The electric lights of the ship were all called into requisition for the illumination of the landscape, producing a weird and ghostlike effect as the trees and clumps of bush first caught the light and then brightened into full radiance as they flashed past, to instantly fade again into obscurity.
"We can find him, Tom!" But this was easier said than done. Even though they were aided by the bright light, they caught no glimpse of the man who called himself Simpson. "Guess he got away," said Tom, when he and Ned had circled about and investigated many clumps of bushes, trees, stumps and other barriers that might conceal the fugitive. "I guess so," agreed Ned.
Below the pergola the land broke to a brook that gurgled through copses of alder, tangles of wild raspberry, and clumps of blueberry and goldenrod, carrying the waters of the lake to the Ashuelot, which bore them to the Connecticut, which swept them southward, till quietly, and almost as unobserved by the human eye as when they rose in the bosom of the hills, they fell into the sea.
For me, I find it worth visiting at least twice a year: in spring when the Poet's Narcissus flowers in great clumps under the north hedge, and the columbines grow breast-high pink, blue, and blood-red; and again in autumn, for the sake of an apple which we call the gillyflower small and shy, but of incomparable flavour and for a gentle melancholy which haunts the spot like yes, like a human face, and with faint companionable smiles and murmurs of dead-and-gone laughter.
The country was materially changed: the pine had disappeared and gentle slopes with clumps of large poplars formed some pleasing groups: willows were scattered over the swamps. When I entered the tent the Indians spread a buffalo robe before the fire and desired me to sit down.
It looked out over the sweet green peace of the Luxembourg Gardens, with their winding paths and their clumps of trees and shrubbery, their flaming flower-beds, their groups of weather-stained sculpture. A youth in laborer's corduroys and an unclean beret strolled along under the high palings; one arm was about the ample waist of a woman somewhat the youth's senior, but, as ever, love was blind.
At about half-past five in the evening the hilly character of the country gave place to that of a wide-stretching level plain, thickly overgrown with long rank grass, with occasional isolated clumps of bush, and here and there a tall feathery palm, or a grove of wild plantains or bamboo.
"She gives the dear boys plenty to eat," said Eleanor; and she provided for us that evening in the same liberal spirit. What a feast we had! Strong tea, and abundance of sugar and rich cream. We laid the delicious butter on our bread in such thick clumps, that sallow-faced Madame would have thought us in peril of our lives.