The birds were all at roost, the daisies on the green had closed their fairy hoods, the honeysuckle twining round the porch exhaled its perfume in a twofold degree, as though it lost its coyness at that silent time and loved to shed its fragrance on the night; the ivy scarcely stirred its deep green leaves.

How tranquil, and how beautiful it was! Was there no sound in the air, besides the gentle rustling of the trees and the grasshopper's merry chirp?
Hark! Something very faint and distant, not unlike the murmuring in a sea-shell.

Now it grew louder, fainter now, and now it altogether died away.

Presently, it came again, subsided, came once more, grew louder, fainter--swelled into a roar.

It was on the road, and varied with its windings.