TO BRIGHTON. 209 



which the brake is thrusting itself up ; others, again, 

 are red with ragged robins, and the fields adjacent fill 

 the eye with the gaudy glare of yellow charlock. The 

 note of the cuckoo sounds above the rushing of the 

 train, and the larks may be seen, if not heard, rising 

 high over the wheat. Some birds, indeed, find the 

 bushes by the railway the quietest place in which to 

 build their nests. 



Butcher-birds or shrikes are frequently found on 

 the telegraph wires ; from that elevation they pounce 

 down on their prey, and return again to the wire. 

 There were two pairs of shrikes using the telegraph 

 wires for this purpose one spring only a short distance 

 beyond noisy Clapham Junction. Another pair came 

 back several seasons to a particular part of the wires, 

 near a bridge, and I have seen a hawk perched on the 

 wire equally near London. 



The haze hangs over the wide, dark plain, which, 

 soon after passing Eedhill, stretches away on the right. 

 It seems to us in the train to extend from the foot of 

 a great bluff there to the first rampart of the still dis- 

 tant South Downs. In the evening that haze will be 

 changed to a flood of purple light veiling the horizon. 

 Fitful glances at the newspaper or the novel pass the 

 time ; but now I can read no longer, for I know, with- 

 out any marks or tangible evidence, that the hills are 

 drawing near. There is always hope in the hills. 



The dust of London fills the eyes and blurs the 

 vision ; but it penetrates deeper than that. There is 

 a dust that chokes the spirit, and it is this that makes 

 the streets so long, the stones so stony, the desk so 

 wooden ; the very rustiness of the iron railings about 



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