12 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



which belongs one picture that occurs to me as character- 

 istic of the South Country — 



A crossing of roads encloses a waste place of no man's 

 land, of dwarf oaks, hawthorn, bramble and fern, and 

 the flowers of knapweed and harebell, and golden tor- 

 mentil embroidering the heather and the minute seedling 

 oaks. Follow one of these roads past straight avenues of 

 elms leading up to a farm (built square of stone, under a 

 roof of thatch or stone slate, and lying well back from 

 the road across a level meadow with some willows in the 

 midst, elms round about, willow herb waving rosy by the 

 stream at the border), or merely to a cluster of ricks; and 

 presently the hedges open wide apart and the level white 

 road cools itself under the many trees of a green, wych 

 elms, sycamores, limes and horse-chestnuts, by a pool, and, 

 on the other side, the sign of the " White Hart," its 

 horns held back upon its haunches. A stone-built farm 

 and its barns and sheds lie close to the green on either 

 side, and another of more stateliness where the hedges 

 once more run close together alongside the road. This 

 farmhouse has three dormers, two rows of five shadowy 

 windows below, and an ivied porch not quite in the 

 centre; a modest lawn divided by a straight path; dense, 

 well-watered borders of grey lavender, rosemary, ladslove, 

 halberds of crimson hollyhock, infinite blending stars of 

 Michaelmas daisy; old apple trees seeming to be pulled 

 down almost to the grass by glossy-rinded fruit : and, 

 behind, the bended line of hills a league away, wedding 

 the lowly meadows, the house and the trees to the large 

 heavens and their white procession of clouds out of the 

 south and the sea. The utmost kindliness of earth is 



