SELBORNE 295 



visible — a still, wet, desolate country with trees 

 and bushes standing in the water, unstirred by 

 a breath of wind. Only at long intervals a 

 yellow-hammer was heard uttering his thin note ; 

 for just as this bird sings in the sultriest weather 

 that silences other voices, so he will utter his 

 monotonous chant on the gloomiest day. 



At last the aspect of the country changed : in 

 place of brown heath, with gloomy fir and furze, 

 there was cheerful verdure of grass and de- 

 ciduous trees, and the straight road grew deep 

 and winding, running now between hills, now 

 beside woods, and hop-fields, and pasture lands. 

 And at length, wet and tired, I reached 

 Selborne — the remote Hampshire village that 

 has so great a fame. 



To very many readers a description of the 

 place would seem superfluous. They know it 

 so well, even without having seen it ; the little, 

 old-world village at the foot of the long, steep, 

 bank-like hill, or Hanger, clothed to its summit 

 with beech-wood as with a green cloud ; the 

 straggling street, the Plestor, or village green, 

 an old tree in the centre, with a bench surround- 

 ing its trunk for the elders to rest on of a 



