124 
BRAMBLES AND BAY LEAVES. 
hampstead." The country, with its woody hills and 
miles and miles of wheatlands, turnip-fields, and meadows, 
swells grandly around us. There are copses and forests 
of pine stems ; broad fields of cruciferous blossoms glow¬ 
ing like golden seas with ripples and billows of amber. 
Up above lie the woods; and the partridges and phea¬ 
sants whirr away in heavy flight to shelter. The toil 
up-hill has cooled our energies, so we step in here to a 
small roadside inn, and seated in the only public room, 
which serves as a kitchen, pantry, and public parlour, 
regale ourselves with a sweet draught of “ Prior's 
Entire." Here are eight houses and a mud cabin, 
backed on one side by the splendid park of Squire Ellis, 
flanked to the left with the richly wooded hills, through 
which the road rises and falls like an undulating line of 
foam upon a dark green sea of rolling billows; behind 
lies the valley we have just left, with its banks of 
harebells, wfild thyme, and yellow ragworts; and on all 
hands the country lies basking in sunshine, full of fertile 
promise, beauty, and vegetable exuberance, and dotted 
and fringed all over with bushy lines of Blackberries. 
Down the steep hill towards the wood, up again, as the 
road passes over the upland, and a new scene breaks 
upon us. Down again into the thick of the wood, and 
feast our eyes on the interminable silvery birch masts, 
which gleam away into the dark background, like the 
spars of an anchored fleet all wedged together in a green 
sea of fern, while a solemn rustling in the green twinkling 
foliage above sounds like a chorus of dryads, or the song 
of liberated fays, which have been imprisoned in the glens 
since the days of Oberon and Titania. Blackberries 
