Outside Dorlill
A WIDE plain, where the broadening Floss hurries oween its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace. On this mighty tide the black ships - laden with the fresh-sted fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, or with the dark glitter of coal - are borne along to the town of St Oggs, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river brink, tinging the water with a soft purple hue uhe tra glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch the rich pastures and the patches of dark earth, made ready for the seed of broad-leaved green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown . There is a remnant still of the last years golden clusters of bee-hive ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and everywhere the hedge-rows are studded with trees: the distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretg their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by the red-roofed towributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is with its dark, ging wavelets! It seems to me like a living panion while I wander along the bank and listen to its low placid voice, as to the voice of one who is deaf and loving. I remember those large dipping willows... I remember the stone bridge... And this is Dorlill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on iernoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at - perhaps the chill damp season adds a charm to the trimly-kept, fortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brim full now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and brahat gleam from uhe bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water here among the withes - unmindful of the awkward appearahey make in the drier world above.
The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy deafness which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the se. They are like a great curtain of sound, shutting o from the world beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered waggon ing home with sacks of grain. That ho waggoner is thinking of his dinner, getting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour; but he will not touch it till he has fed his horses, - the strong, submissive, meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at him from between their blinkers, that he should crack his whip at them in that awful manner, as if they hat hint! See how they stretch their shoulders, up the slope towards the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near home. Look at their grand shaggy feet that seem to grasp the firm earth, at the patient strength of their necks bowed uhe heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their struggling haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their hardly-earned feed of , ahem, with their moist necks freed from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the muddy pond. Now they are on the brid