LANGLEY OPEN. 271 



That skimmed the surface of the [grassy field] ; 

 Suddenly halting now, — a lifeless stand! 

 And starting otf again with freak as sudden." 



Wordsworth. 



Langley Open is a wide undulating down of great 

 elevation : it is, indeed, with the exception of Langley 

 Cleve, a large rounded hill on the left, the loftiest 

 land in the vicinity. Hillshorough, which is nearly 

 500 feet above the sea level, is considerably inferior, 

 for the eastern horizon was visible above its summit. 

 It was a lovely scene. From my feet the green down 

 sloped away a few hundred yards to the edge of the 

 precipice, in one direction indented to form a deep, 

 fem-covered glen, which appeared as if it would 

 afford an easy ^ccess to the beach ; a deceptive 

 promise, however; for the adventurer, after wending 

 his difficult and hazardous way through the guUey, 

 would at length find himself at the margin of a yawn- 

 ing chasm, with angular, almost perpendicular, sides, 

 and see the inviting little beach, perfectly inaccessible, 

 a hundred and fifty feet below him. 



From the position in which I was, however, I could 

 not see any portion of the shore except the termina- 

 tions of one or two projecting points of rock; but the 

 hollow sound of the surf that was breaking over those 

 points, and rolling in among the boulders and pebbles, 

 came pleasantly on the ear. The deep blue sea lay 

 spread out in wide expanse, studded with shipping 

 and bounded by the distant coast : tiny waves ruffled 

 up by the western breeze were speckling the surface 

 with those snowy masses of foam that mariners call 

 "wliite horses ;" or, to use the poet's similitude, — 



