The solitude of the walk was a great boon, and there was healing in the power of silence—the repose of not being forced to be lively. Summer flowers had passed, but bryony mantled the bushes in luxuriant beauty, and kingly teazles raised their diademed heads, and exultingly stretched forth their sceptred arms. Purple heather mixed with fragrant thyme, blue harebells and pale bents of quiver-grass edged the path, and thistledown, drifting from the chalk uplands, lay like snow in the hollows, or danced like living things on the path before her. A brood of goldfinches, with merry twitter and flashing wings, flitted round a tall milk thistle with variegated leaves and a
little farther on, just at the opening of a glade from the path, she beheld a huge dragon-fly, banded with green, black, and gold, poised on wings invisible in their rapid motion, and hawking for insects. She stood to watch, collecting materials to please Miss Charlecote, and make a story for Maria.
‘Stand still. He is upon you.’
She saw Miss Charlecote a few yards off, nearly on all-fours in the thymy grass.
‘Only a grasshopper. I’ve only once seen such a fellow. He makes portentous leaps. There! on your flounce!’
‘I have him! No! He went right over you!’
‘I’ve got him under my handkerchief. Put your hand in my pocket—take out a little wide-mouthed bottle. That’s it. Get in, sir, it is of no use to bite. There’s an air-hole in the cork. Isn’t he a beauty?’
‘O, the lovely green! What saws he wears on his thighs! See the delicate pink lining! What horns! and a quaint face, like a horse’s.’
‘“The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses.” Not that this is a locust, only a gryllus, happily for us.’
‘What is the difference?’