A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 97 



here a slope of meadow faded into dusty blue-green ; 

 here a rounded swell of plough-land showed pale 

 pink or dull purple. Sudden touches of more vivid 

 colour gleamed out, a rape-field, a willow-plot, a white 

 cottage. In middle distance the oaks displayed 

 tawny brown, green bronze, or brass-yellow, as the 

 light shifted. The old white horse, feeding in the 

 first meadow beyond the brook, was a dominant point 

 of colour in the whole picture ; and the cowslips in 

 the grass just beyond the wood had their part in 

 the concert. 



After a time the endless changes of beauty seemed 

 to weary the perception, which, as it were, flags and 

 fails from the necessary keen vision of mind. I moved 

 across a bed of bluebells to the southern side of the 

 wood, where a gap opened over the Weald and the 

 Downs. The long grey wall of chalk-hills closed 

 the view ; below it rolled the landscape in wooded 

 promontories and islands ; right beneath me lay the 

 little cluster of roofs, the spire beside its black yews, 

 the brook-poplars, the smoke drifting in a light 

 haze from the chimneys of the street. Sounds came 

 to me here on the height ; faint cock-crows from a 

 score of farms ; the thin clangour of the church clock 

 a peaceful lenitive chime ; the clink of the smithy. 

 I could hear the alternate rumble and silence as the 



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