THE COUNTkY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 7 



overgrown with moss and tufted polypody, and the dense, 

 very old thorns, shapely, or twisted in rigid agonies, 

 seem worthy of an heroic life — of the life of Mr. Doughty's 

 British princes, Caradoc, Beichiad, Togodumnos ; of 

 women like Embla and Herfryd and Boudicca ; of bards 

 like Carvilios. They and their chariots alone should 

 press the mossy, golden turf ; they alone would not be 

 unworthy of the great depths below the forest roof that 

 seem to be submerged in time. In one part of the forest 

 the moss at the base of every oak actually suggests a tide 

 that has risen so high, and left this green sign, but left 

 no life behind except the hosts of wood-pigeons and the 

 crow, the magpie, the jay, and the green woodpecker, that 

 are always crying about these desolate palaces of I know 

 not what lovely powers. It is beautiful yet, and at even- 

 ing, like the sea in a twitching calm of thin, disappearing 

 dark lines, offers us the inexplicable sorrows and unsus- 

 pected consolations of music, building for us a new earth, 

 a new heaven, and a new hell. 



Still another way to Marlborough — and a better, because 

 it can only be travelled on foot — is to climb Ladder Hill 

 along the western edge of Burderop Woods, and to go 

 straight for Barbury Castle and its attendant beech- 

 clump, due south upon the summit of Hackpen Hill. 

 East is the curve of Liddington Hill, the smooth, bare, 

 uninhabited turf ; north-east the bosom of Wanborough 

 Hills ; a little east of Barbury, on Smeathe's Ridge, 

 trees that arrange themselves like a huge ruined castle ; 

 and more east a long, thin line of trees that seem Titanic 

 wayfarers trooping dejectedly ; and at the feet of these 

 related hills is all one level land of corn and roots, and 

 tinkling sheep, and ricks. The road traverses this plain, 

 and begins to rise beyond Mudgell, crossing the Ridge- 

 way close to the disused Burderop race-course. Tumuli 

 and earthworks lie on the rising ground, on this hand 

 and that, so commonly that the youthful Jefferies found 

 it ' alive with the dead.' On Barbury Hill we are among 

 harebell, rock-rose, scabious, and trefoil blossoms. The 



