144 THE AMATEUR TRAMP IN ENGLAND 



arrangements are rather quaint than commodious. The 

 venerable brick tints blend harmoniously with the dark 

 foliage of the embosoming trees. The lozenged 

 windows, half hidden in trailing roses, let in less light 

 and air than may be altogether desirable. The ivy that 

 has clambered over the roof and settled helplessly down 

 upon it in ponderous masses must be one vast museum 

 of entomology, and distil clouds of damp like a patent 

 condenser. But one must pay in some shape or other 

 for the picturesque ; and it is certain that if the tenant 

 had the soul of an artist, it would be gladdened through 

 the finest months of the year. 



The ground rises more and more, and again the 

 country changes its character. You are getting up 

 towards the ridge of the downs, whose hog-back has 

 been looming against your horizon. The soil is poorer 

 and the farms more scattered, and the oaks and beeches 

 and elms are giving place to heather and fir woods. 

 Wherever the sunbeams can thread their way, they are 

 lighting up aisles of golden columns ; and the heat 

 draws forth the fragrance of the resin that is oozing in 

 bubbly and trickling streams. So far as the scents 

 go, you might be on the banks of the Adour, and for 

 solitude you might be in the glades of Rothiemurchus 

 or on the dreary moor of Rannoch. Yet London Stone 

 is within a score of miles, and you paid but half-a-crown 

 for your railway ticket. But those Surrey woods have 

 this speciality, that their beauties are embraced in a 

 reasonable compass, and you may count on coming out 

 on the other side, if only you persevere long enough. 



