282 NATURE IN DOWNLAND 



and this one had something more in him than all 

 those I had known. As I went over the rain-sodden 

 heath, often getting into hidden water, the singing 

 ceased, and when I had got to where the cows were 

 feeding among some large furze-bushes the boy was 

 not there, or at all events not visible. I had seen his 

 grey cap as he watched my approach from behind a 

 bush a few minutes before; but he was not there 

 now ; he had concealed himself like a shy little lizard, 

 or furze wren, and after looking about among the 

 bushes for some minutes, I gave it up. 



Possibly it was nothing more than a little rustic's 

 shyness that had made him hide; but it is a fact, 

 I think, that there is a streak or vein of stupidity, 

 which, running eastward from Hampshire, crops up in 

 many places among the West Sussex Downs. 



One day, seeing a youth harnessing a pony at a 

 gate, I asked him the name of a hill over which I 

 had just walked. " I don't know," he returned, evi- 

 dently surprised at the question ; " I never heard that 

 it had a name." A hill, I as.sured him, must have a 

 name ; and I remarked that he was probably new to 

 the neighbourhood. He assured me that he was a 

 native of the place, and that to his knowledge the hill 

 had no name ; then he added casually, " We call it 

 Bepton Hill." 



A day or two later a man told me of an inn, away 

 from any road, in a deep wooded valley among the 

 hills, where I could get refreshment, and he was very 



