272 FIELD AND HEDGEROW, 
horned sheep and. lambs go over it—where do they not 
go? Like goats they wander everywhere, 
In a cottage some way up the hill we ate clotted 
cream and whortleberry jam. Through the open door 
came the ceaseless rush ! rush! like a wind in the wood. 
‘The floor was of concrete, lime and sand; on the open 
hearth—pronounced ‘airth’—sods of turf cut from the 
moor and oak branches were smouldering under the 
chimney crook. Turf smoke from the piled-up fires of 
winter had darkened the beams of the ceiling, but from 
that rude room there was a view of the river, and the 
hill, and the oaks in full June colour, which the rich 
would envy. Sometimes in early morning the wild red 
deer are seen feeding on the slope opposite. As we 
drove away in reckless Somerset style, along precipices 
above the river, with nothing but a fringe of fern for 
parapet, the oak woods on the hills under us were 
shading down into evening coolness of tint, the yellow 
less warm, the green more to the surface. Upon the 
branches of the trees moss grows, forming a level green 
top to the round bough like a narrow cushion along it, 
with frayed edyes drooping over each side. Though 
moss is common on branches, it does not often make a 
‘raised cushion, thick, as if green velvet pile were laid for 
the birds to run on. There were rooks’ nests in some 
tall ash trees ; the scanty foliage left the nests exposcd, 
they were still occupied by late broods. Rooks’ nests 
are not often seen in ashes as in elms. 
By a mossy bank a little girl—a miniature Audrey 
—stout, rosy, and ragged, stood with a yellow straw hat 
aslant on her yellow hair, eating the leaves from a spray 
of beech in her hand. Audrey. looked at us, eating the 
beech leaves steadily, but would not answer, not even 
‘Where’s your father to?’ For in Somersct the ‘to’ is 
