TO JblilGHTON. 219 



High as is the hill, there are larks yonder singing 

 higher still, suspended in the brown light. Turning 

 away at last and tracing the fosse, there is at the 

 point where it is deepest and where there is some 

 trifling shelter, a flat hawthorn bush. It has grown - 

 as flat as a hurdle, as if trained espalierwise or 

 against a wall — the effect, no doubt, of the winds. 

 Into and between its gnarled branches, dry and leaf- 

 less, furze boughs have been woven in and out, so as 

 to form a shield against the breeze. On the lee of 

 this natural hurdle there are black charcoal fragments 

 and ashes, where a fire has burnt itself out ; the stick 

 still leans over on which was hung the vessel used 

 at this wild bivouac. 



Descending again by the footpath, the spur of the 

 hill yonder looks larger and steeper and more 

 ponderous in the mist; it seems higher than this, 

 a not unusual appearance when the difference in 

 altitude is not very great. The level we are on seems 

 to us beneath the level in the distance, as the future 

 is higher than the present. In the hedge or scattered 

 bushes, half-way down by the chalk-pit, there growa 

 a spreading shrub — the wayfaring tree — ^bearing large, 

 broad, downy leaves and clusters of berries, some 

 red and some black, flattened at their sides. There 

 are nuts, too, here, and large sloes or wild bullace. 

 This Ditchling Beacon is, I think, the nearest and 

 the most accessible of the southern Alps from London; 

 it is so near it may almost be said to be in the 

 environs of the capital. But it is alone with the wind. 



