DRIVING 127 



or fronting the white roads, lies Newmarket, the out- 

 lines of its buildings not yet distinct amid the blue 

 smoke of its breakfast fires and the golden haze of 

 this glorious autumn morning. Away and beyond the 

 town the long thin lines of black green belt intersect 

 the rolling stubbles and fallows of Six-Mile Bottom, 

 Dullingham, or Cheveley, until, melting in the far 

 distance, a faint cloud of brownish smoke mingles 

 with the azure atmosphere that aptly hangs over the 

 Light Blue University. 



Or change the time and scene ; the actors and 

 the characters the same. The grass crackles as you 

 shift your feet to keep them warm, crushing the 

 frosted splinters from the blades ; the gorse, coated 

 in crystal globules, sends down a powdery shower as 

 you kick it, revealing its spiked clusters underneath, 

 green, warm, and living, or tawny and dead, but 

 clasping the golden blossom which, like the kiss, is 

 never out of season. The black green belt of firs 

 against the northern blue in front sways lightly as the 

 breeze comes to it from the east, turning your eyes to 

 where, far on the right, the village with its square 

 church tower guards the heath. Beyond again, with- 

 out a break or undulation, without a hill or hollow, 

 stubble, heath, and fallow stretch away, until, melting 

 in a still grey bar, you know the ocean ; unbroken, 



