280 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



be washed clean by the lustral water of the rain, 

 sparkling silvery and crystal as it fell, and the wind- 

 chased snow-flakes that first whitened and then melted 

 on me — to be one with nature, purified and myself 

 once more. 



Better days than those spent in roughest weather 

 on the hills I could not well have known. " Oh, but 

 you should visit this part of downland in spring ! " I 

 was told again and again. It was good enough in mid- 

 winter in spite of weather of the kind we call bad; 

 so good indeed as to make me somewhat sceptical as 

 to its far greater attractiveness in summer. Is there 

 anything in rural England more gratifying to the 

 eye than a \vinter prospect in this green diversified 

 country, with leafless beechen woods spread over 

 slopes and summits, and gathered like darkest purple 

 clouds within the combes and hollows of the great 

 round hiUs ! 



Glad as I was to be out in wind and rain and 

 snow on the summits, it was often a relief to escape 

 from so furious a blast by going down to the sheltered 

 weald the flat, wooded country between Midhurst and 

 Hartmg, where I loved to walk, and where these 

 rambles had to end. I walked by the Rother, that 

 fairest Sussex river, among the brown and purple 

 woods, and darker pine. Walking there one day 

 about noon, when the sky was a very soft blue, with 

 a few fleecy grey clouds floating in it, and the wind 

 was still, I came to a wide heath somewhere between 



