Save for this
happy upward curve of the branch, we are encompassed by breathless
foliage; even the gloom was hot; the little insects that are food for
fish tried a flight and fell on the water's surface, as if panting. Here
and there, a sullen fish consented to take them, and a circle spread,
telling of past excitement.
I had listened to the vicar's Homeric lowing for the space of a minute or
so--what some one has called, the great beast-like, bellow-like, roar and
roll of the Iliad hexameter: it stopped like a cut cord. One of the
numerous daughters of his house appeared in the arch of white
cluster-roses on the lower garden-terrace, and with an exclamation, stood
petrified at the extraordinary spectacle, and then she laughed outright.
I had hitherto resisted, but the young lady's frank and boisterous
laughter carried me along, and I too let loose a peal, and discovered
myself. The vicar, seeing me, acknowledged a consciousness of his absurd
position with a laugh as loud. As for the scapegrace girl, she went off
into a run of high-pitched shriekings like twenty woodpeckers, crying: I
Mama, mama, you look as if you were in Jordan!'
The vicar cleared his throat admonishingly, for it was apparent that Miss
Alice was giving offence to her mother, and I presume he thought it was
enough for one of the family to have done so.
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