10 FRESH FIELDS 



inns on the road, and get a view of the weald of 

 Kent in the morning; but the inns refused us enter- 

 tainment, and we were compelled to do the eight 

 miles at night, stepping off very lively the last four 

 in order to reach Maidstone before the hotels were 

 shut up, which takes place at eleven o'clock. I 

 learned this night how fragrant the English elder is 

 while in bloom, and that distance lends enchant- 

 ment to the smell. When I plucked the flowers, 

 which seemed precisely like our own, the odor was 

 rank and disagreeable ; but at the distance of a few 

 yards it floated upon the moist air, a spicy and 

 pleasing perfume. The elder here grows to be a 

 veritable tree; I saw specimens seven or eight 

 inches in diameter and twenty feet high. In the 

 morning we walked back by a different route, tak- 

 ing in Boxley Church, where the pilgrims used to 

 pause on their way to Canterbury, and getting many 

 good views of Kent grain-fields and hop-yards. 

 Sometimes the road wound through the landscape 

 like a footpath, with nothing between it and the 

 rank-growing crops. An occasional newly-plowed 

 field presented a curious appearance. The soil is 

 upon the chalk formation, and is full of large frag- 

 ments of flint. These work out upon the surface, 

 and, being white and full of articulations and pro- 

 cesses, give to the ground the appearance of being 

 thickly strewn with bones, — with thigh bones 

 greatly foreshortened. Yet these old bones in skill- 

 ful hands make a most effective building material. 

 They appear in all the old churches and ancient 



