A LANE IN THE COTSWOLDS 57 



strip which is the Severn shining down to the 

 Bristol Channel. 



We now come to a little wandering road, called 

 for reasons unknown to me Seven Leases Lane, and 

 after a time end our wanderings at a point whence 

 we can look down on misty Gloucester and its 

 cathedral ; and this is a historic spot if the rumour 

 is to be trusted, that from here King Charles 

 watched the siege. The lane is pleasant with its 

 plashed hedges beset with traveller's joy (clematis) 

 and bryony. Clematis likes to climb up trees, but 

 it seems quite happy ramping over the hedges. It 

 is now in its freshest youth, and the careless way 

 in which the young stems toss themselves hither 

 and thither gives an impression of endless living 

 things dancing with complete abandon on the 

 hedge as on an airy floor. The traveller's joy 

 climbs by seizing hold of the branches of plants 

 more solid than itself. It grips them with its 

 leaf-stalks, which serve as tendrils and support the 

 weakling stem aloft in the clear air. But as yet 

 they have hardly begun to fix themselves ; though 

 some I saw which had caught each other, giving 

 themselves a gay aspect by seeming to dance hand 

 in hand. 



The white bryony is there also, and its tendrils 

 have fastened on to the hazel, beech and dog-wood, 

 which make up the mass of the hedge. Their 

 tendrils are but delicate ropes, and when they have 

 seized a twig they would break away in the first 

 fresh breeze. But this is prevented by the fact 

 that the tendrils contract into spiral springs, and by 

 the give-and-take of its elastic coils the cable 



