THE AMATEUR TRAMP IN ENGLAND 145 



For, blinking owl-like in the unaccustomed light, it 

 dawns upon you that you are on the skirts of an open 

 common. Brakes of holly, bound with bramble and 

 wild clematis, are scattered about here and there, tufted 

 with the wool of the sheep, who are amicably grazing 

 among the rabbits. The rabbits have mined it with 

 their burrows here and there, and a horseman must 

 keep a bright look-out and a firm bridle-hand ; but 

 what a magnificent place it is for a gallop. Were it 

 not for these foot-traps, towards sunset, or in the cool 

 of the early morning, you might come across a string 

 of thoroughbreds from the neighbouring training stable. 

 A dip into a little valley, with a stream in the bottom, 

 and then up again and still upwards. Now you are 

 breasting the steep slopes of the downs, and the breaths 

 of air that stirred fitfully below have swelled into a 

 gentle breeze. You look back on a burnished pano- 

 rama of wheat crops and grass fields lying against the 

 black masses of the woods, and flecked with the 

 shadows of those fleecy clouds that are floating aim- 

 lessly across the azure sky. And what a view there is 

 in all directions from the summit ! On the one side, 

 the fair fertility of the weald, that stretches in meadows 

 and corn-land, in orchards and hop-gardens, to that 

 blue line of gentle eminences seen faintly through the 

 heat-haze in the distance ; on the other, the broad 

 valley of the Thames, with the battlements and keeps 

 of Windsor on the sky-line. One way, were the smoke 

 canopy to thin and lift, you might distinguish the 

 square towers of Westminster and the dome and cross 



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