28 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



In the warm rain of the next day the chiffchaff sings 

 among the rosy blossoms of the leafless larches, a small 

 voice that yet reaches from the valley to the high hill. 

 It is a double, many times repeated note that foretells the 

 cuckoo's. In the evening the songs are bold and full, but 

 the stems of the beeches are faint as soft columns of 

 smoke and the columns of smoke from the cottages are 

 like them in the still air. 



Yet another frost follows, and in the dim golden light 

 just after sunrise the shadows of all the beeches lie on 

 the slopes, dark and more tangible than the trees, as if 

 they were the real and those standing upright were the 

 returned spirits above the dead. 



Now rain falls and relents and falls again all day, and 

 the earth is hidden under it, and as from a land submerged 

 the songs mount through the veil. The mists waver out 

 of the beeches like puffs of smoke or hang upon them 

 or in them like fleeces caught in thorns : in the just pene- 

 trating sunlight the long boles of the beeches shine, and 

 the chaffinch, the yellowhammer and the cirl bunting 

 sing songs of blissful drowsiness. The Downs, not yet 

 green, rise far off and look, through the rain, like old 

 thatched houses. 



When a hot sun has dried the woods the wind beats a 

 cloud of pollen like grey smoke from the yews on the 

 beechen coombes which are characteristic of Hampshire. 

 They are steep-sided bays, running and narrowing far 

 into and up the sides of the chalk hills, and especially 

 of those hills with which the high flinty plateau breaks 

 down to the greensand and the plain. These steep sides 

 are clothed with beeches, thousands of beeches interrupted 



