CHAPTER XII 



CHILDREN OF EARTH — HAMPSHIRE AND SUSSEX 



At the end of the lane, at the head of one of the 

 beechen chalky coombes, just where the beeches cease 

 and the flinty clay begins, stands a thatched cottage under 

 five tall ash-trees. A grassy lane runs by, but on three 

 sides the place is surrounded by huge naked concave 

 sweeps of grey ploughland which take the February 

 sunshine and cloud shadow as delicately as beaten silver. 

 The walls are of grey-white soft stone, but only a little 

 of them is visible, because the steep thatch sweeps almost 

 to the ground and overhangs the gables, in each of which 

 is a small window and under one a door. In hot summer 

 or windy winter, if the field happens to be without a crop, 

 the earth is of the same colour as the thatch, and the 

 cottage looks as if it were the work — like a mole-hill — 

 of some creature that has worked underground and risen 

 up just there and rested, peering out of the two dark 

 windows upon the world. It is impossible to find any 

 point of view from which any house can be seen along 

 with this, except one — the ash-trees, the tall hazels of the 

 lane, or the swelling fields hide them away. But the 

 pewits loop their flight every spring over and round about 

 the cottage, and the dark eyes under the thatch can 

 always see a hare, and often half-a-dozen. Whether the 

 ashes are purple in spring, yellow in autumn or grey in 

 winter, whether the surrounding fields are bare, or green 

 with turnips, or yellow with charlock, or empurpled gold 

 with ripe wheat, the cottage is always the same stubborn, 



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