44 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



white beam tree, at the edges of high woods and in the 

 midst of the beeches, has its hour, when its thousands of 

 large white buds point upward like a multitudinous 

 candelabrum. For me the white beam is always associ- 

 ated with wayfaring. Its white buds are the traveller's 

 joy of spring. The buds like blossoms or flames bewitch 

 from afar off. They are always upon sloping ground 

 and usually upon hillsides in the chalk land. In the 

 autumn their leaves often shrivel before falling, and turn 

 to a colour that looks like pink almond blossom by con- 

 trast with juniper and yew. When they have fallen, they 

 are as much to be noticed. They lie commonly with their 

 white undersides uppermost, and though rain soaks them 

 and wind scatters them and they are trodden down, they 

 preserve their whiteness until the winter or the following 

 spring. It is a tree that belongs, above all others except 

 the yew, to the Pilgrims' Way, and it is impossible to 

 forget these leaves lying white on the untouched wayside 

 sward, among the dewy purple and crimson and gold 

 of other leaves, sparkling in the sun and entering into all 

 the thoughts and fancies and recollections that come to 

 one who goes in solitude along that old road when the 

 scent of the dying year is pungent as smoke and sweet 

 as flowers. 



KENT, SURREY AND HAMPSHIRE. 



The beam tree is bright on the soft hills all through 

 the days of rain following upon the snow and sun. There 

 are days when earth is absorbed in her delights of growth 

 and multiplication. The rain is a veil which she wraps 



