AN AUTUMN RAMBLE IN SURREY 103 



sides, exposing fine fibrous roots. Heather grows in 

 patches, and firs are clumped about ; a mountain ash 

 flashes out with its load of crimson clusters a treat 

 for the birds. They will soon be gone, for the 

 missel thrush, song thrush, and blackbird dearly love 

 these berries. I have eaten them myself often when 

 roaming the woods. In Russia they are put in spirits, 

 as we do cherries, to make a warm winter cordial ; 

 jelly, also, to eat with game, is made from them. 

 Rather bitter their flavour is, but decidedly aromatic. 

 Furze in full flower is dotted about. Right in front 

 of me is a giant fir, struck by lightning in a late 

 thunderstorm. Great limbs of it, as large as some of 

 the surrounding trees, are twisted like ropes ; a few- 

 limbs have escaped and show in weird contrast by 

 their dark green foliage against the others which are 

 scorched to tinder. From the trunk where the bolt 

 struck the bark and ripped it off, long strips hang. 

 A tree such as Gustave Dora's pencil would have 

 reproduced : twisted, tortured limbs like those in 

 Dante's ' Inferno ' ! Close to is heard the ripple of a 

 trout-stream. 



A peculiar feature of this road leading to the 

 moorlands is, that in sheltered nooks and hollows you 

 come on many very old manor farm-houses, covered 

 with mosses, lichens, and house-leeks, standing in fine 



