FOOTPATHS 21 



sky, and on the third another wood. Such a dreamy 

 hollow might be painted for a glade n 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 

 farther 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 house-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 with parapets 

 only four or five inches high. It is thrown aslant the 

 stream, and not straight across it, and has a long brick 

 approach. It is not unlike on a small scale the 

 bridges seen in views of Eastern travel. Another path 

 leads to a hamlet, consisting of a church, a farmhouse, 



