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Long lines of tall elms run down to the very water's edge, their boughs unwarped by any blast; here and there apple orchards are bending under their loads of fruit, and narrow strips of water-meadow line the glens, where the red cattle are already lounging in richest pastures, within ten yards of the rocky pebble beach.
It was well-grassed, and a little river ran through it, from which went narrow leats held up by hatches, so that the more part of the valley bottom was a water-meadow, wherein as now were grazing many kine and sheep. There were willows about the banks of the river, and in an ingle of it stood a grange or homestead, with many roofs half hidden by clumps of tall old elm trees.
So a pretty fight I had, for half-a-dozen meetings, till I called in my lord; and, sir, he came down by the next express, like a trump, all the way from town, and gave them such a piece of his mind was going to have the Board of Health down, and turn on the Government tap, commissioners and all, and cost 'em hundreds: till the fellows shook in their shoes; and so I conquered, and here we are, as clean as a nut, and a fig for the cholera! except down in Water-lane, which I don't know what to do with; for if tradesmen will run up houses on spec in a water-meadow, who can stop them?
The outskirts of this level water-meadow were diversified by rounded and hollow pastures, where just now every flower that was not a buttercup was a daisy. The river slid along noiselessly as a shade, the swelling reeds and sedge forming a flexible palisade upon its moist brink.
The frog disappeared with his prize, to come to the surface again at the edge of a lily-pad, a few feet off, and blink his goggle-eyes in satisfaction. The Alien of the Wild A full day's tramp back from the settlement, on the edge of a water-meadow beside the lonely Quah-Davic, stood the old woodsman's cabin. Beside it he had built a snug log-barn, stored with hay from the wild meadow.
He came across the water-meadow, I think. And any way he made off back that way when I shouted at him. Begad, though, it'll be worth a trifle to see who this rascal is, sir. I wonder what he's after. Not the common kind of assassin. What? "This was the climax; I felt that another such encounter would drive me raving mad.
The forest was free to all, provided that they rendered due service to the Prince. Might not a house or castle built there become the beginning of a city? The Baron listened, and then said he must go and see that a new hatch was put in the brook to irrigate the water-meadow. That was all. Felix next wrote an anonymous letter to the Prince pointing out the value of the place.
So early on the morrow was the Host astir; but ere they came to Wildlake's Way, the Shepherd-folk turned aside westward to go home, after they had bidden farewell to their friends and fellows of the Dale; for their souls longed for the sheepcotes in the winding valleys under the long grey downs; and the garths where the last year's ricks shouldered up against the old stone gables, and where the daws were busy in the tall unfrequent ash-trees; and the green flowery meadows adown along the bright streams, where the crowfoot and the paigles were blooming now, and the harebells were in flower about the thorn-bushes at the down's foot, whence went the savour of their blossom over sheep-walk and water-meadow.
Your downfall is near, and yet in your wildest dreams you would never guess how strange your downfall is to be. Again with a dull thunder of hoofs the horses gallop over the soft water-meadow. Again with a clash of metal the two riders meet. It is Nigel now, taken clean in the face of his helmet with the blunted spear, who flies backward off his horse and falls clanging on the grass.
Very beautiful are the scorpion-grasses both on the banks among the rushes and scattered about in mid stream. The meadows are full of life. There are sounds sweet to the ear and sights pleasing to the eye. In the new-mown water-meadow grasshoppers such hosts of them that they could never be numbered for multitude are chirping and dancing merrily.
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