The Slanderers by Warwick Deeping

LOVELY were the Mallan valleys where the woods came down to drink of the golden meads. The trees clambered up against the clouds, wild yet imperturbable, silent yet steeped in mysterious music that spoke to the soul. Larch and cedar, birch and pine, oak and mountain-ash stood as on the slopes of a great amphitheatre and watched the Mallan moving to the sea. Willows dipped their branches in the stream. Gnarled, cloven oaks thrust their rough fists into the white bosoms of flowering thorns. The Mallan banks were all of gold, of golden tissue spread upon green velvet. Moon-faced daisies whitened the long, languorous grass where wild sorrel shone like flame in the western sun. The blue bloom of summer and a great stillness covered the woods.

The Mallan burned brilliant in the sun. Rippleless, it stretched a band of blackened silver betwixt its sedges. A ring of eddies, a splash of foam, or a golden gleam darting swift and evanescent through the crystal darkness told of the life below. The blue-and-white mosaics of heaven shone on its idle bosom. Dragon-flies, blue, green, and scarlet, skimmed gossamer bright over rush and flag. Gnats played in the shallows and the moorhen paddled in the shade.