Then there are thickets of
bramble, so thorny that they would be cut away directly, anywhere
else; but here they are covered with little cinque-foiled blossoms
of pure silver; and, for berries, they have clusters of rubies.
Dark rubies, which you only see are red after gathering them. But
you may fancy what blackberry parties the children have! Only they
get their frocks and hands sadly torn.
LILY. But rubies can't spot one's frocks, as blackberries do?
L. No; but I'll tell you what spots them--the mulberries. There
are great forests of them, all up the hills, covered with silk-
worms, some munching the leaves so loud that it is like mills at
work; and some spinning. But the berries are the blackest you ever
saw; and, wherever they fall, they stain a deep red; and nothing
ever washes it out again. And it is their juice, soaking through
the grass, which makes the river so red, because all its springs
are in this wood. And the boughs of the trees are twisted, as if
in pain, like old olive branches; and their leaves are dark. And
it is in these forests that the serpents are; but nobody is afraid
of them. They have fine crimson crests, and they are wreathed
about the wild branches, one in every tree, nearly; and they are
singing serpents, for the serpents are, in this forest, what birds
are in ours.
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