288 WITHIN AN HOUR OF LONDON TOWN. 



on sandy knolls. Go where you will, if there are 

 sandy bits jutting out, you will see birches of vari- 

 ous sizes on them. Decayed and decaying stumps 

 of trees are dotted about in the hollows in all direc- 

 tions. Beautiful objects, these; for the decaying 

 wood is rich red-brown in colour, beaded over with 

 a film of moisture, and spangled with the vivid 

 green vegetation, that flourishes only in such locali- 

 ties as the one we are trying to describe. A track 

 runs by the side of one of the rills. This we follow 

 upwards, to find that we are looking at a lot of tiny 

 cascades, caused by large stones in the loamy gravel. 

 There will be a trickling run for a few feet, and 

 then a stone crops up. The water shoots over this 

 in a tinkling splash, a fairy fall, which has in the 

 course of time hollowed out a small pool below the 

 stone, containing it may be a gallon, or two gallons, 

 of pure spring -water. In some of the hollows on 

 both sides of these water -runs is dark leaf-mould, 

 the accumulation of decayed leaves that have fallen 

 from one season to another from who can say how 

 long? Green mosses, tiny ferns that the winter 

 has not cut down, with quantities of various twig- 

 brush, cover the banks of these runs. Presently we 



