Entering the Forest. 253 
' placed, because planted by nature, they look but a 
group on thedown. There is indeed a boundary, but 
it is at a distance and concealed: it is the trout stream 
in the hollow far below, winding along the narrow 
valley, and hidden by osier-beds and willow pollards. 
Ascending the slope of the down towards the 
trees, the brown-tinted grass feels slippery under 
foot: this wiry grass always does feel so as autumn 
approaches. A succession of detached hawthorn 
bushes—like a hedge with great gaps—grow in a line 
up the rising ground. The dying vines of the bryony 
trail over them—one is showing its pale greenish 
white flowers, while the rest bear heavy bunches of 
berries. A last convolvulus, too, has a single pink- 
streaked bell, though the bough to which it holds is 
already partly bare of leaves. The touch of autumn 
is capricious, and passes over many trees to fix on 
one which stands out glowing with colour, while on 
the rest a dull green lingers. Near the summit a few 
bunches of the brake fern rise out of the grass; then 
the foremost trees are reached, beeches as yet but 
faintly tinted here and there. Their smooth irregu- 
larly round trunks are of no great height—both fern 
and trees at the edge seem stunted, perhaps because 
they have to bear the brunt and break the force of 
the western gales sweeping over the hills, 
For the first two hundred yards the travelling is 
easy because of this very scantiness of the fern and 
underwood ; but then there seems to rise up a thick 
