38 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



and puts a spirit into those who pass under and adds a 

 mile to their pace. The gorse is in flower. In the 

 hedges the goose-grass has already set its ladders against 

 the thorns, ladders that will soon have risen to the top 

 of every hedge like scaling ladders of an infinite army. 

 Down from tall yew and ash hang the abandoned ropes 

 of last year's traveller's joy that have leapt that height — 

 who has caught them in the leap? — but the new are on 

 their way, and even the old show what can be done as 

 they sway from the topmost branches. At sunset an 

 immense and bountiful land lies at our feet and the wine- 

 red sun is pouring out large cups of conquest. The 

 undulating ploughland is warm in the red light, and it is 

 broken up by some squares of old brown stubble and of 

 misty young wheat, and lesser green squares full of bleat- 

 ing and tinkling sheep. Out of these fields the dense 

 beech copses rise sheer. Beyond, in the west, are ridges 

 of many woods in misty conflagration; in the south-west, 

 the line of the Downs under the level white clouds of a 

 spacious and luminous sky. In the south, woods upon the 

 hills are dissolving into a deep blue smoke, without form 

 except at their upper edges. And in the north and north- 

 west the high lands of Berkshire and Wiltshire are pros- 

 trate and violet through thirty miles of witching air. 

 That also is a call to go on and on and over St. Cath- 

 erine's Hill and through Winchester until the brain is 

 drowsed with the colours of night and day. 



The colour of the dawn is lead and white — white snow 

 falling out of a leaden sky to the white earth. The rose 

 branches bend in sharper and sharper curves to the ground, 

 the loaded yew sprays sweep the snow with white plumes. 



