GOING WESTWARD 215 



last gate gives a view, under oak and hazel sprays, on to 

 the green undulations of hill and coombe, their sides 

 studded with juniper and thorn, with something of 

 oceanic breadth in the whole, as far as the utmost bound, 

 leagues away, where a line of small trees stands against 

 the sky in the manner of ships. The hedges in this 

 downland are low or broken. A few ricks stand at the 

 borders of stubble and grass. Sheep munch together in 

 square pens. There is no house, and the rain has wiped 

 out everything that moved save its own perpendicular 

 fringes waving along the hills. This solitude of grey 

 and brown is completed by the owner's notice, on a frail 

 and tottering post : " Trespassers will be prosecuted with 

 the utmost rigour of the law." Towards the farther 

 verge compact copses of beech begin to saddle the ridges 

 and invade the hollows so as to form cliffy dark sides to 

 the friths of pale stubble or turf amongst them. And 

 then the green way runs into a Roman road, and in the 

 twilight and rain I can see many other narrow ancient 

 tracks winding into the white road as straight as a sword, 

 losing themselves in it like children in a dragon's mouth. 

 The turf alongside is mounded by tumuli; and against 

 the hedge a gypsy family pretend to shelter from the 

 windy rain; the man stands moody, holding the pony, 

 the women crouch with chins upon knees, the children 

 laugh and will not be still. They belong to the little 

 roads that are dying out : they hate the sword-like shelter- 

 less road, the booming cars that go straight to the city in 

 the vale below. They are less at home there than the 

 swallows that haunt the leeward sides of the sycamores, 

 ever rushing up towards the trees and ever beaten back, 

 like children playing " I'm the king of the castle," at the 



