NATURE NEAR LONDON 



clearly bounds not this field only, but the second 

 and the third, and so far as the eye can see over 

 the low hedges of the corn, the trees continue. 

 The green lane, as it enters the wood, becomes 

 wilder and rougher at every step, widening, too, 

 considerably. 



In the centre the wheels of timber carriages, 

 heavily laden wifh trunks of trees which were 

 dragged through by straining teams in the rainy days 

 of spring, have left vast ruts, showing that they 

 must have sunk to the axle in the soft clay. These 

 then filled with water, and on the water duckweed 

 grew and aquatic grasses at the sides. Summer 

 heats have evaporated the water, leaving the weeds 

 and grasses prone upon the still moist earth. 



Rushes have sprung up and mark the line of the 

 ruts, and willow stoles, bramble bushes, and thorns 

 growing at the side, make, as it were, a third hedge 

 in the middle of the lane. The best path is by the 

 wood itself, but even there occasional leaps are 

 necessary over pools of dark water full of vegeta- 

 tion. These alternate with places where the ground, 

 being higher, yawns with wide cracks crumbling at 

 the edge, the heat causing the clay to split and open. 

 In winter it must be an impassable quagmire ; now 

 it is dry and arid. 



Rising out of this low-lying spot, the lane again 

 becomes green and pleasant, and is crossed by an- 



