pipes. Big trees, and especially elms, cleared of undergrowth and

left standing amid such things, acquired a peculiar tattered

dinginess rather in the quality of needy widow women who haveseen

happier days.

The Ravensbrook of my earliermemories was a beautiful stream. It

came into my world out of a mysterious Beyond, out of a garden,

splashing brightly down a weir which had once been the weir of a

mill. (Above the weir and inaccessible there were bulrushesgrowing

in splendid clumps, and beyond that, pampas grass, yellow and

crimson spikes of hollyhock, and blue suggestions of wonderland.)

From the pool at the foot of this initial cascade it flowed in a

leisurely fashion beside a footpath,-there were two pretty thatchcd

cottages on the left, and here were ducks, and there were willows on

the right,-and so came to where great treesgrew on high banks on

either hand and bowed closer, and at last met overhead. This part

was difficult to reach because of an old fence, but a little boy

might glimpse that long cavern of greenery by wading. Either I have

actuallyseen kingfishers there, or my father has described them so

accurately to me that he inserted them into mymemory. Iremember

them there anyhow. Most of that overhung part I never penetrated at

all, but followed the field path with my mother and met the stream

again, where beyond there were flat meadows, Roper's meadows. The

Ravensbrook went meandering across the middle of these, now between

steep banks, and now with wide shallows at the bends where the

cattle waded and drank. Yellow and purple loose-strife and ordinary

rushesgrew in clumps along the bank, and now and then a willow. On

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