ITCHEN VALLEY 



and on a few subsequent occasions that I had glimpses 

 of the river that runs by it. They were like momentary 

 sights of a beautiful face, caught in passing, of some 

 person unknown. Then it happened that in June 1900, 

 cycling Londonwards from Beaulieu and the coast by 

 Lymington, I came to the valley, and to a village about 

 half-way between Winchester and Alresford, on a visit 

 to friends in their summer fishing retreat. 



They had told me about their cottage, which serves 

 them all the best purposes of a lodge in the vast wilder- 

 ness. Fortunately in this case the "boundless contiguity 

 of shade " of the woods is some little distance away, on 

 the other side of the ever green Itchen valley, which, 

 narrowing at this spot, is not much more than a couple 

 of hundred yards wide. A long field's length away 

 from the cottage is the little ancient, rustic, tree-hidden 

 village. The cottage, too, is pretty well hidden by trees, 

 and has the reed and sedge and grass green valley and 

 swift river before it, and behind and on each side green 

 fields and old untrimmed hedges with a few old oak 

 trees growing both in the hedgerows and the fields. 

 There is also an ancient avenue of limes which leads 

 nowhere and whose origin is forgotten. The ground 

 under the trees is overgrown with long grass and 

 nettles and burdock ; nobody comes or goes by it, it is 

 only used by the cattle, the white and roan and straw- 

 berry shorthorns that graze in the fields and stand in 

 the shade of the limes on very hot days. Nor is there 

 any way or path to the cottage ; but one must go and 



