TO BBIGETON. 217 



A passing shepherd, without his sheep, but walking 

 with his crook as a staff, stays and turns a brown 

 face towards me when I ask him the way. He points 

 with his iron crook at a narrow line which winds up 

 the Down by some chalk-pits ; it is a footpath from 

 the corner of the road. Just by the corner the hedge 

 is grey with silky flocks of clematis ; the hawthorn is 

 hidden by it. Near by there is a bush, made up of 

 branches from five different shrubs and plants. 



First hazel, from which the yellow leaves are fast 

 dropping; among this dogwood, with leaves darken- 

 ing; between these a bramble bearing berries, some 

 red and some ripe, and yet a pink flower or two left. 

 Thrusting itself into the tangle, long woody bines of 

 bittersweet hang their clusters of red berries, and 

 above and over all the hoary clematis spreads its 

 beard, whitening to meet the winter. These five are 

 all intermixed and bound up together, flourishing in 

 a mass; nuts and edible berries, semi-poisonous fruit, 

 flowers, creepers ; and hazel, with markings under 

 its outer bark like a gun-barrel. 



This is the last of the plain. Now every step 

 exposes the climber to the force of the unchecked 

 wind. The harebells swing before it, the bennets 

 whistle, but the sward springs to the foot, and the 

 heart grows lighter as the height increases. The 

 ancient hill is alone with the wind. The broad 

 summit is left to scattered furze and fern cowering 

 under its shelter. A sunken fosse and earthwork 

 have slipped together. So lowly are they now after 

 these fourteen hundred years that in places the long 

 rough grass covers and conceals them altogether. 



