Hatter's Castle [antikvár]

I The spring of 1879 was unusually forward and open. Over the Lowlands the green of early corn spread smoothly, the chestnut spears burst in April, and the hawthorn hedges flanking the white roads which laced the countryside, blossomed a month before time. In the inland villages farmers exulted cautiously and children ran bare-footed after watering-carts ; in the towns which flanked the wide river the clangour of the ship-yards lost its insistence and, droning through the mild air, mounted to the foothills behind, where the hum of a precocious bee mingled with it and the exuberant bleating of lambs overcame it; in the city clerks shed their coats for coolness and lolled in ofiices execrating the sultry weather, the policy of Lord Beacons-field, the news of the Zulu War, and the high cost of beer. Thus, over the whole estuary of the Clyde, from Glasgow to Portdoran, upon Overton, Darroch, Ardfillan—those towns whichj lying between the Winton and Doran hills, formed the three cardinal points of the fertile triangle upon the right bank of the firth—over the ancient Borough of Levenford, which stood bisecting exactly the base line of this triangle at the point where Leven entered Clyde, over all lay the radiance of a dazzling sun and, lapped in this strange benignant heat, the people worked, idled, gossiped, grumbled, cheated, prayed, loved, and lived. Over Levenford, on this early day of May, thin wisps of cloud had hung languidly in the tired air, but now in the late afternoon these gossamer filaments moved slowly on to activity. A warm breeze sprang up and puffed them across the sky, when, having propelled them out of sight, it descended upon the town, touching first the high historic rock which marked the confluence of the tributary Leven with its parent stream, and which stood, a land-mark, outlined clearly against the opal sky like the inert body of a gigantic elephant. The mild wind circled the rock then passed quickly ¦ f ' . i i'