62 Chee Tor. 



way to go; the third is by the river-side for the entire 

 distance, the banks being accessible from immediately 

 beneath the station, this is the best way to return. 



Because of its being bisected by the railway, No. 2 

 path is from time to time barricaded. But it gives pros- 

 pects so enchanting, and the wild and sweet-scented air 

 is so delicious, and the variety is so great, that to miss it 

 is a pity. To adopt it, moreover, leaves level ground for 

 the return, a shorter distance, and a lovely wood. It is 

 always desirable \.Q finish well. Not a little pleasure is it, 

 again, to find upon this route a tall ash-tree, beneath 

 which we may rest and refresh ; and to be greeted by 

 the white-crowned Opulus,* and by deep-red roses on 

 every brier, and scarcely to see our way because of the 

 incessant rise and fall of the ground. There is nothing 

 like a little mystery to give charm to a country walk, 

 which pleases the more that it is wayward. A beautiful 

 tree is the ash. . Commonly, too, it is unisexual. Hence 

 it is that some individuals are decorated throughout the 

 winter with curious clusters of brown fruits, while others 

 are perfectly destitute. The ash is the only English 

 forest-tree that has leaves of the kind called " pinnate," 

 and at the same time growing in pairs. When leafless, 

 it may be identified by its short, thick, and sooty-black 



* Viburnum Opulus, the wild guelder-rose, that beautiful shrub 

 which resembles the hydrangea in having a coronet of large flat 

 flowers surrounding the central cluster of small and tubular ones. 

 (See " British and Garden Botany," p. 515.) 



