THE CROWN ON THE HILL 219 



blanching ; as where I now see one silver -birch, of 

 most pallid foliage, that shines under the dark cone- 

 bearers, like a lamp of wan flame. Her sisters of 

 the open down have long since lost their glory, but 

 it was golden treasure that the West wind shook from 

 them ; not such bloodless leaves as droop belated here 

 and wait for frost to fell them. 



Frost was at hand ; the hushed, wakeful silence 

 spoke of it, and the black buds of the ash, and the 

 traceries of the briars, and the velvet flower-buds of 

 the gorse, where, tucked like tiny agate beads along 

 her thorny branches, they waited to scent easterly 

 breezes and the grey days of coming March. A 

 few, indeed, had paled to the bursting, and some 

 twinkled in full flower, for the greater furze never 

 sleeps. 



As I emerged from the woods, a red haze spread 

 round the setting sun, touched the naked boughs of 

 oaks, and warmed the last tattered, lemon foliage of 

 elms that were perched along the ridges of an ex- 

 tended scene. Already wide valleys and the courses 

 of rivers beneath were buried in the dun of night ; 

 the air thickened, and sudden clatter of pigeons' wings 

 came as an assault upon silence. 



Aloft, crowning the very crest of this great hill 

 with a double circlet, spread a Roman encamp- 

 ment. To-day, forests bury half these spacious 

 circles, and a high-road marks a diameter across 

 their midst. Arrayed in perished grasses and fading 



