which the blue was visible in places. But westward there was still a bank of vapour concealing the sinking sun; and eastwards, towards the downs, it was also thick and dark. I walked slowly along with a gun, on the inner side of a great hedge which hid the hills, waiting every now and then behind a projecting bush for a rabbit to come out—a couple being wanted. In heavy rain, such as had lasted all day, they generally remain within their ‘buries’—or if one slips out, he usually keeps on the bank, sheltered by stoles and trees, and nibbling a little of the grass that grows there and is comparatively dry. But as evening approaches and the rain ceases, they naturally come forth to break a long fast, and may then be shot.

Some little time passed thus, when, in sauntering along, I came to a gap in the hedge, and glanced through it in the direction of the downs, there partly visible. The idea at once occurred to me that the part of the hills seen through the gap was remarkably high—very much higher and more mountainous than any I had ever visited; and actually, in the abstraction of the moment, half-intent on the rabbits and half perhaps thinking of other things, I resolved to explore that section more thoroughly. Yet, after walking a few yards further, somehow it seemed singular that the great elevation of this down should never previously have been so apparent. In short, growing curious in the matter, I returned to the gap and looked again.

There was no mistake: there was the down rising up against the sky—a huge dusky mountainous hill, exactly the same in outline as I remembered it, quite familiar, and yet entirely strange. There was the old barn near the foot of the slope; above it the black line of a low hedge and mound; on the summit the same old clump of trees; and lastly, a tall column of black smoke rising upwards, as if from a steam plough at work. It was all just the same, but lifted up into the air—the hill grown into a mountain. A second and longer gaze failed to discover the explanation of the apparition: the eye was completely deceived, and yet the mind was not satisfied. But upon getting up into the gap of the hedge, so as to obtain a better view from the mound, the cause of the illusion was at once visible.

Looking through the gap was like looking through a narrow window, only a short section of the hill being within sight; from the elevation of the mound the whole range of hills could be seen at the same time. Then it became immediately apparent that on either side of this great mountain the continuation of the down right and left remained still at its former level. Upon the central hill a cloud was resting, and had for the time taken its exact shape. The ridge itself was dark, and the dark grey vapour harmonised precisely with its hue; so that the real hill and the cloud merged into each other. Either the barn and clump of trees were reproduced or perhaps enlarged and distorted by the refraction: the seeming column of smoke was a fragment of a blacker colour which chanced to be in a nearly perpendicular position. Even when recognised as such, the illusion was still perfect; nor could the eye separate the hill from the unsubstantial vapour.

As I watched it, the apparent column of smoke bent, and its upper part floated away, enlarging just as smoke, its upward motion overcome by the wind, slowly yields to the current. Soon afterwards the light breeze stretched out one end of the mass of cloud, began to roll up the other, and presently lifted it, revealing the real ridge beneath, which grew momentarily more distinctly defined. Finally, the misty bank hung suspended over the down, and slowly sailed eastwards with the wind. Some time afterwards I saw a similar mirage-like enlargement of the down by cloudy vapour resting on it and assuming its contour; but the illusion was not so perfect, because seen from a more open spot, allowing an extended view of the range, and because the cloud was lighter in colour than the hill to which it clung.

These clouds were, of course, passing at a very low elevation above the earth: in rainy weather, although but a few hundred feet high, the ridges are frequently obscured with cloud. The old folk in the vale, whose whole lives have been spent watching and waiting on the weather, say that the hills ‘draw’ the thunder—that wherever a storm arises it always ‘draws’ towards them. If it comes from the west it often splits—one storm going along the ridges to the south, and the other passing over detached hills to the northward; so that the basin between is rarely visited by thunder overhead. They have, too, an old superstition—based apparently, on a text of the Bible—that the thunder always rises originally in the north, though it may reach them from a different direction. For it is their belief also that thunder ‘works round;’ so that after a heavy storm, say in the afternoon, when the air has cleared to all appearance, they will tell you that the sunshine and calm are a deception. In a few hours’ time, or in the course of the night, the storm will return, having ‘worked round:’ and indeed in that locality this is very often the case. It is to be observed that even a small copse will for a short distance in its rear quite divert the course of a breeze; so that a weathercock placed on the leeside is entirely untrustworthy: if the wind really blows from the south and over the copse, the weathercock will sometimes point in precisely the opposite direction, obeying the ‘undertow’ of the gale, as it were, drawing backwards.

In summer especially, I fancy, an effect is sometimes produced by a variation in the electrical condition of comparatively small areas, corresponding perhaps with the difference of soil—one becoming more heated than another. Showers are certainly often of a remarkably local character: a walk of half a mile along a road dark from recent rain will frequently bring you to a place where the dust is white and thick as ever, the line of demarcation sharply marked across the highway. In winter rain takes a wider sweep.

From the elevation of the earthwork on the downs—with a view of mile after mile of plain and vale below—it is easy on a showery summer day to observe the narrow limits of the rain. Dusky streamers, like the train of a vast dark robe, slope downwards from the blacker water-carrying cloud above—downwards and backwards, the upper cloud travelling faster than the falling drops. Between the hill and the rain yonder intervenes a broad space of several miles, and beyond it again stretches a clear opening to the horizon. The streamers sweep along a narrow strip of country which is drenched with rain, while on either side the sun is shining.

It seems reasonable to imagine that in some way that strip of country acts differently for the time being upon the atmosphere immediately above it. So singularly local are these conditions, sometimes, that one farmer will show you a flourishing crop of roots which was refreshed by a heavy shower just in the nick of time, while his neighbour is loudly complaining that he has had no rain. When the sky is overcast—large masses of cloud, with occasional breaks, passing slowly across it at a considerable elevation without rain—sometimes through these narrow slits long beams of light fall aslant upon the distant fields of the vale. They resemble, only on a greatly lengthened scales the beams that may be seen in churches of a sunny afternoon, falling from the upper windows on the tiled floor of the chancel, and made visible by motes in the air. So through such slits in the cloudy roof of the sky the rays of the sun shoot downwards, made visible on their passage by the moisture or the motes floating in the atmosphere. They seem to linger in their place as the clouds drift with scarcely perceptible motion; and the labourers say that the sun is sucking up water there.

In the evening