ix FESTIVAL OF GREEN DRAKE 141 



jump out of its way for ever and ever, and 

 you begin to doubt whether there be any 

 wicked enough for so excessive an arrange- 

 ment. We certainly are not wicked enough, 

 and we may regard the glare and the dust 

 and the motor-car merely as a kind of pur- 

 gatory intended to fit us for the paradise 

 to come. Ecce janua caeli. We turn to the 

 right, go round a corner, and are at once 

 in the deep cool shadows of a perfect English 

 lane. High banks, fern -clad and mossy, 

 crowned with still higher hedges of hazel, 

 alder, and thorn which almost meet over- 

 head, make of the sun but a luminous 

 atmosphere ; an oak here and there spreads 

 out massive limbs protectingly casting a 

 deep shade. The wild rose is in full bloom, 

 and stands out against the darker green, 

 shyly conscious of its beauty. Surely it is 

 the most tantalising of blossoms, so fragile 

 and so exquisite, the " dainty rogue in porce- 

 lain " of the hedgerow. 



A quarter of a mile of this easiest of 

 travelling and we are at a gate on the right 

 hand by two haystacks. It has been newly 

 tarred, and one may neither climb nor touch. 

 What is to be done ? A short field away 



