16 THE GALLOWS 



winds round a deep dell, known as the Devil's Punch 

 Bowl, till it reaches the summit, called the Hind's Head : 

 on the top of which stood another of those " hanging 

 woods " frequent in the latter part of the eighteenth 

 century, and not totally lost sight of till long after the 

 commencement of the nineteenth — this was a tripartite 

 erection— and the names of the parties and their crime 

 are recorded on a stone still standing by the side of the 

 bowl, down which they dragged their victim. Looking 

 down the deep declivity that forms the side of this 

 spacious circular ravine, here and there you might see 

 peasant boys gathering berries, and a very little stretch 

 of imagination will enable you to recall a familiar 

 paragraph from " Lear," and almost realize the picture 

 the poet has so graphically drawn : — 



" Half-way down 

 Hangs one that gathers samphke : dreadful trade ! 

 Methinks he seems no bigger than his head." 



Elevated about 1,000 feet above the level of the sea, 

 you have one of the most magnificent and ^picturesque 

 views the mind can contemplate from such a position. 

 In vain the eye attemj^ts to rest upon any particular 

 object, except at its extreme points. On the right the 

 hill that bounds the sight in that direction upholds the 

 little tovm of Xettlebed, in Oxfordshire; while on the 

 left the eye can distinctly perceive an object inTunbridge 

 Wells, at a distance of 130 miles, across steej) hills and 

 deep ravines ; heath and forest, glebe and meadow, 

 presenting a landscape that bids defiance to the art of 

 man to describe. 



I cannot refrain from recording the impression made 



