The way out of it leads to some wooded hills, and across it runs a brook, that flows through the meadows and brings trout with it, from under the stones in the dingles, where the light is as twilight, at even noon-day, so dense and thickset is the leafage ; and when, in the summer, it is but a shallow one you can see, as you stand on the side footbridge, the speckled ones down below you—provided the children, playing truant from school, are not paddling there or playing. We often go on to those wooded hills, or loiter about in the dingles; or, if out for the day, prolong our walk a few miles to some distant hamlet. But if, leaving the road, we turn short down "the watery lane," by the high footpath on the bank above it, we find, as we go by the side of the brook, that it is not without ripple and tinkle, too, which are only lost at flood-time, or when the squire's fine team, with their jingling bells, comes merrily splashing through it. Beside the pathway, here and there, are scattered cottages—with gardens by them—closed in by elders and mossed old palings—where dames, if they hear you, soon appear amongst their wilderness of sprays and blossoms, hoping to snip you something, just for gossip; when, should you chance to "put them in a picture," you win their hearts at once. But the best of all is up at the end there, where the lane goes off to the woods above it, as it is there that the orchards are thicker and the fruit is of the finest; and, when the trees are heaped over with their red and white bloom, the tints you see then are remembered. The lane—shut in with broom-bushes and wild-rose sprays—is in itself, too, a most pleasant place to linger in, as it is massed with large herbage and flowers and ferns, where tall elms tower, and old oaks throw their gnarled arms down across it; while shimmering leaves from a backing of ash and hazel, keep up an incessant rustle; a place of welcome shade and softened light, and a haunt of frisking squirrels.
Source: The Illustrated London News, July 1, 1882, p.19
See also:—
Summer: July
Summer: Roses
Summer: Mornings
Summer: Sounds
Summer: Drawing
Summer: Models
Summer: Girls
Summer: Rest