The afterglow lingered long in the sky, for it was Midsummer Day and settled weather The West was a sea of pale primrose, where a few long purple cloud-islands floated. It was as if one stood on a height above some fairy Benbecula, flat, dove-coloured, and marked its coastline in innumerable inlets (where celestial sea-trout ran) reach out for ever to a horizon that was not. Behind me a peerless spire soared from amidst the dark green of elms, as if it would lose itself in the rose of the upper air. I stood on ancient turf, which had laid its seemly carpet of green velvet between odorous flower beds and tall, trim hedges, straight to the old house, where shone a single red window. Ten inches below my feet flowed the river, primrose out of that primrose sea, broad, silent, swift, to mingle almost instantly with woods, where night already dwelt. Large, oily rings appeared here and there upon the surface of the water, spread, died away, were succeeded by others, larger, oilier. The stillness was broken only by
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