272 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



horned sheep and lambs go over it — where do they not 

 go ? Like goats they wander everywhere. 



In a cottage some way up the hill we ate clotted 

 cream and whortleberry jam. Through the open door 

 came the ceaseless rush ! rush ! like a wind in the wood. 

 The floor was of concrete, lime and sand ; on the open 

 hearth — pronounced 'airth' — sods of turf cut from the 

 moor and oak branches were smouldering under the 

 chimney crook. Turf smoke from the piled-up fires of 

 winter had darkened the beams of the ceiling, but from 

 that rude room there was a view of the river, and the 

 hill, and the oaks in full June colour, which the rich 

 would envy. Sometimes in early morning the wild red 

 deer are seen feeding on the slope opposite. As we 

 drove away in reckless Somerset style, along precipices 

 above the river, with nothing but a fringe of fern for 

 parapet, the oak woods on the hills under us were 

 shading down into evening coolness of tint, the yellow 

 less warm, the green more to the surface. Upon the 

 branches of the trees moss grows, forming a level green 

 top to the round bough like a narrow cushion along it, 

 with frayed edges drooping over each side. Though 

 moss is common on branches, it does not often make a 

 raised cushion, thick, as if green velvet pile were laid for 

 the birds to run on. There were rooks' nests in some 

 tall ash trees ; the scanty foliage left the nests exposed, 

 they were still occupied by late broods. Rooks' nests 

 are not often seen in ashes as in elms. 



By a mossy bank a little girl — a miniature Audrey 

 — stout, rosy, and ragged, stood with a yellow straw hat 

 aslant on her yellow hair, eating the leaves from a spray 

 of beech in her hand. Audre}' looked at us, eating the 

 beech leaves steadily, but would not answer, not even 

 * Where's your father to ? ' For in Somerset the ' to ' is 



