24: NATURE NEAR LONDON. 



oak in the centre, the rising ground on two sides 

 shutting out all but the sky, and on the third another 

 wood. Such a dreamy hollow might be painted for 

 a glade in the Forest of Arden, and there on the sward 

 and leaning against the ancient oak one might read 

 the play through without being disturbed by a single 

 passer by. A few steps further and the stile opens on 

 a road. 



There the teams travel with rows of brazen spangles 

 down their necks, some with a wheatsheaf for design, 

 some with a swan. The road itself, if you follow it, 

 dips into a valley where the horses must splash through 

 the water of a brook spread out some fifteen or twenty 

 yards wide; for, after the primitive Surrey fashion, 

 there is no bridge for waggons. A narrow wooden 

 structure bears foot-passengers ; you cannot but linger 

 half across and look down into its clear stream. Up 

 the current where it issues from the fields and 

 falls over a slight obstacle the sunlight plays and 

 glances. 



A great hawthorn bush grows on the bank ; in 

 spring, white with May ; in autumn, red with haws or 

 peggles. To the shallow shore of the brook, where it 

 washes the flints and moistens the dust, the hoifee- 

 martins come for mortar. A constant succession of 

 birds arrive all day long to drink at the clear stream, 

 often alighting on the fragments of chalk and flint 

 which stand in the water, and are to them as rocks. 



Another footpath leads from the road across the 

 meadows to where the brook is spanned by the 

 strangest bridge, built of brick, with one arch, but 

 only just wide enough for a single person to walk, and 



