SLSSPT HOLLOW 41 



buildings of the farm, whose busy stir once filled the 

 hollow with pleasant sounds of toil. No careful hand 

 prunes now among the wilderness of barren boughs. 

 Few footsteps linger by the well. No track of wheel is 

 seen upon the grassy way save when, in the evening of 

 the year, some waggon rumbles down with the red 

 harvest of these wilding trees, or bears to some distant 

 stackyard the thin sheaves from sterile upland fields. 



But among the lichen-coated branches, in the hollows 

 of old elms and ruined walls, the pulses beat of that 

 remoter world that he alone may tread who, with hushed 

 voice and noiseless footfall, will in green lane and orchard 

 watch and wait. For him who will are played among 

 these quiet scenes the endless dramas of a gentle life. 



A wandering footpath across pleasant fields leads to 

 this true West-country stile, on the brink that overlooks 

 the hollow. The path beyond, passing the precincts of 

 the deserted farm, and bordered by a straggling orchard, 

 winds downward to the well is shaded then by the 

 hedge-rows of a narrow lane, skirts the brown hill-side 

 touched with blossomed furze, and loses itself at last in 

 a wilderness of lichen-covered trees, whose old gate joins 

 the Roman roadway under the steep brow of Mendip. 



Easy it is to wander here unseeing. Easy to find, 

 in dull lane and orchard tenantless, a single summer 

 hour too long. A careless footstep ever breaks the 

 spell. The clumsy clatter of a gate will frighten in 

 a moment all the tenants of the glen ; a noisy laugh 

 drive off in hasty flight whole troops of timid 

 actors. But for him who has watched above the hills 



