OUTSIDE THE WOOD. 75 



partly supported by strong wooden pillars, and at the mouth 

 a hut of slabs, thickly covered by furze-faggots, has been 

 constructed, with a door, and with roof thatched with 

 reeds from the lake. A rude bench runs round three 

 sides ; against the fourth some digging tools recline — 

 strong spades and grub-axes for rooting out a lost ferret, 

 left here temporarily for convenience. The place, rough 

 as it is, gives shelter, and, throwing the door open, there 

 is a vista among the ashpoles and the hazel bushes over- 

 topped with great fir trees and more distant oaks. In 

 the later spring this is a lovely spot, the ground all tinted 

 with the shimmering colour of the bluebells, and the 

 hazel musical with the voice of the nightingale. 



Outside the wood, where the downland begins to rise 

 gradually, there stretches a broad expanse of furze growing 

 luxuriantly on the thin barren soil, and a mile or more in 

 width. It has a beauty of its own when in full yellow 

 blossom — a yellow sea of flower, scenting the air with an 

 almost overpowering odour as of a coarser pineapple, and 

 full of the drowsy hum of the bees busy in the interspersed 

 thyme. It has another beauty later on when the thick 

 undergrowth of heath is in bloom, and a pale purple 

 carpet spreads around. Here rabbits breed and sport, and 

 hares hide, and the curious furze-chats fly to and fro ; 

 and lastly, but not leastly, my lord Reynard the Fox 

 loves to take his ease, till he finally meets his fate in the 

 jaws of clamouring hounds, or is assassinated with the 



