Over the Hills and Far Away 



sympathise with her and feel some pity : but her 

 imprisonment and self-mutilation are wilful, and 

 I have no patience with her. 



How can she see my beech tree and talk of 

 chairs ? How can she see the whitebeam and not 

 clap her hands with joy, or the rhododendrons and 

 the marshy flowers and not laugh with delight ? 

 She scorns fantasy, and yet she is a thousand 

 times more fantastic than any invention of the 

 craziest writers. 



She shall see everything, and in the end, I 

 think, she will not so mightily despise Jane's 

 simplicity. 



Round the stems of the pine trees bracken 

 grows thickly, a green undergrowth sometimes 

 eight feet high. From the tops of the trees pigeons 

 dart and hover through the dim light : a religious 

 light, for here, where the trees are tallest, the woods 

 are like a cathedral decked for festival, where even 

 death is celebrated with brave colour, in the hope 

 and certain knowledge of new birth. 



The ground slopes gradually down to the lake 

 where the herons dwell, mating and nesting in the 

 tree-tops in the early months of the year. Some- 

 times we count as many as twenty of them stand- 

 ing on one leg and fishing in the reeds at the 

 southern end of the lake, and every evening as the 



in 



