Carlisle, in all its ripely tinted length and breadth, lay below us, basking in the August sunshine, that spilled over the brim of the valley to the far-off Markdale Harbour, cupped in its harvest-golden hills.
Then came a little valley overgrown with the pale purple bloom of thistles and elusively haunted with their perfume.

You say that thistles have no perfume?
Go you to a brook hollow where they grow some late summer twilight at dewfall; and on the still air that rises suddenly to meet you will come a waft of faint, aromatic fragrance, wondrously sweet and evasive, the distillation of that despised thistle bloom.
Beyond this the path wound through a forest of fir, where a wood wind wove its murmurous spell and a wood brook dimpled pellucidly among the shadows--the dear, companionable, elfin shadows--that lurked under the low growing boughs.

Along the edges of that winding path grew banks of velvet green moss, starred with clusters of pigeon berries.

Pigeon berries are not to be eaten.

They are woolly, tasteless things.