THE COUNTRY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES ii 



west from Winterbourne Mf)nkt(in to the tiny church of 

 St. Peter's, Highwa}', near Hilmarton, it and its weedy 

 and not populous churchyard half lost among thatched 

 white cottages. From there to Swindon is a footpath 

 through Clevancy, Clyffe Pypard, Broad Town, under 

 Bincknoll ' Castle,' through Elcombe, following, it may 

 well be, in places, the old pilgrim's way that led past Holy 

 Cross at Swindon, past Elcombe, Bushton, Clyffe Pypard, 

 and Studley, on its way to the shrine and well of St. 

 Anne's-in-the-Wood at Bridlington, in Somerset. All the 

 way this path looks up at a secondary terrace of the 

 Downs, and sees the steep slopes which are cloven deep 

 by ancient ways, or sometimes clothed in beech, and at 

 Bincknoll heaped into a promontory carved by a camp, 

 where the life that flourishes now is chiefly that of the 

 chalk-land flowers — marjoram, sweet basil, field-gentian, 

 rock-rose, and thistle — and the wayfaring tree, the hazel 

 and the blackthorn. At Clyffe there is a church, a manor- 

 house, a pond, and a chestnut-tree ; a hanging beech- 

 wood above, ash-trees below. At Broad Town and Binck- 

 noll the way is through barley. The beeches and the good 

 houses follow, of Bassett Down, Saltrop, and Elcombe. 

 Grey Saltrop House, among ash and beech on the slope, 

 has parted with many that rest in Wroughton Church ; 

 its smoke goes up in front of a storied cedar sweetly of 

 a still evening. At Elcombe one of the most lovable 

 of the roads from the hills to the elm-country descends, — 

 a broad strip of grass on either side, and, upon the grass, 

 not too many flowery cottages, with Elcombe Hall at 

 the top and at the bottom a cold, large farmhouse, and its 

 yews and mounting-steps by the gate. Wroughton Church 

 is on the wooded hill above ; beyond, also on the hill, is 

 Old Swindon, and below it New Swindon — noisy, new, 

 cheap, and Liberal, full of every accent, and on market- 

 days rural with cattle and country carts. Swindon is the 

 ' Kingsbury ' and the ' Latten ' of Jefferies. He described 

 the Great Western Railway works there for the North 

 Wilts Herald as a youth, for Fraser's as a man, both times 



