Wild Life in a Southern County Part 10

The elm, with its rough leaf, does not grow in the copse: it is a tree that prefers to stand clear on two sides at least. Oak and beech are here; on their lower branches a few brown leaves will linger all through the winter. Where a huge bough has been sawn from a crooked ill-grown oak a yellow bloated fungus has spread itself, and under it if you lift it with a stick, the woodlice are crowded in the rotting stump. The beech boughs seem to glide about, round and smooth, snake-like in their easy curves. The bark of the aspen, and of the large willow poles, looks as if cut with the point of a knife, the cut having widened and healed with a rough scar. On the trunk of the silver birch sometimes the outer bark peels and rolls up of itself. Seen from a distance, the leaves of this tree twinkle as the breeze bends the graceful hanging spray.

The pheasants, that wander away from the preserves and covers up under the hills far down in the meadows as the acorns ripen, roost at night here in the copse; and should a storm arise, after every flash of lightning gleaming over the downs the c.o.c.ks among them crow. So, too, in the daytime, after every distant mutter of thunder the pheasant c.o.c.ks crow in the preserves, and some declare they can see the flash, even though invisible to human eyes, at noonday.

Cl.u.s.tering cones hang from the firs, fringing the copse on one side-- first green, and then a pale buff, and falling at last hard and brown to strew the earth beneath. In the thick foliage of this belt of firs the starlings love to roost. If you should be pa.s.sing along any road--east, north, west, or south--a mile or two distant, as the sun is sinking and evening approaching, suddenly there will come a rus.h.i.+ng sound in the air overhead: it is a flock of starlings flying in their determined manner straight for the distant copse. From every direction these flocks converge upon it: some large, some composed only of a dozen birds, but all with the same intent. If the country chances to be open, the hedges low, and the spectator on a rise so as to see over some distance, he may observe several such flights at the same time. Rooks, in returning to roost fly in long streams, starlings in numerous separate divisions.

This is especially noticeable in summer, when the divisions are composed of fewer birds: in winter the starlings congregate in larger bodies.

It would appear that after the young birds are able to fly they flock together in parties by themselves, the old birds clubbing together also, but all meeting at night. The parties of young birds are easily distinguished by their lighter colour. This may not be an invariable rule (for the birds to range themselves according to age), but it is the case frequently. Viewed from a spot three or four fields away, the copse in the evening seems to be overhung by a long dark cloud like a bar of mist, while the sky is clear and no dew has yet risen. The resemblance to a cloud is so perfect that anyone--not thinking of such things--may for the time be deceived, and wonder why a cloud should descend and rest over that particular spot. Suddenly, the two ends of the extended black bar contract and the middle swoops down in the shape of an inverted cone, much resembling a waterspout, and in a few seconds the cloud pours itself into the trees. Another minute, and a black streak shoots upwards, spreads like smoke, parts in two, and wheels round back into the firs again.

On approaching it this apparent cloud is found to consist of thousands of starlings, the noise of whose calling to each other is indescribable--the country folk call it a 'charm,' meaning a noise made up of innumerable lesser sounds, each interfering with the other. The vastness of these flocks is hardly credible until seen; in winter the bare trees on which they alight become suddenly quite black. Once or twice in the summer starlings may be observed hawking to and fro high in the air, as if imitating the swallows in an awkward manner. Probably some favourite insect is then on the wing, and they resort to this unwonted method to capture it.

Beyond the fir trees the copse runs up into a corner, where hawthorn bushes, briar, and bramble succeed to the ash-stoles, and are in turn bordered by some width of furze and brake fern. When this fern is young and fresh the suns.h.i.+ne glistens on its glossy green fronds, but on coming nearer the sheen disappears. On a very hot sultry day towards the end of summer there is occasionally a peculiar snapping sound to be heard in the furze, as if some part of the plant, perhaps the seed, were bursting. The shocks of wheat, too, will crackle in the morning sun.

This corner, well sheltered by furze and brake, is one of 'sly Reynard's' favourite haunts. The stems of the furze, when they grow straight, are occasionally cut for walking-sticks. Wood-pigeons visit the copse frequently--in the spring there are several nests--and towards evening their hollow notes are repeated at intervals. Though without the slightest pretensions to a song, there is something soothing in their call, pleasantly suggestive of woodland glades and deep shady dells.

Just before the shooting season opens there is a remarkable absence of song from hedge and tree: even the chirp of the house-sparrow is seldom heard on the roof, where only recently it was loud and continuous. Most of the sparrows have, in fact, left the houses in flocks and resorted to the cornfields after the grain. In this silent season the robin, the wood-pigeon, and the greenfinch, seem the only birds whose notes are at all common: the pigeons call in the evening as they come to the copse, the greenfinches in a hushed kind of way talk to each other in the hedge, and the robin plaintively utters a few notes on the tree. It is not absolute silence indeed; but the difference is very noticeable.

Through the ash-poles on one side of the copse distant glimpses may be obtained of gleaming water, where a creek of the shallow lake runs in towards it.

Bordering the furze a thick hawthorn hedge--a double mound--extends, so wide as to be itself almost another copse. In the 'rowetty' gra.s.s on the bank or in the hollow places, under fallen leaves and trailing ivy, the hedgehog hides during the day, so completely concealed that while the sun s.h.i.+nes it is extremely difficult to find one without a dog.

A spaniel racing down the mound will pounce on the spot and scratch the hedgehog out in a moment; then, missing the dog, you presently hear a whining kind of bark--half rage, half pain--and know immediately what he is doing. He is trying to unroll the hedgehog, who, so soon as he felt the approach of the enemy, curled himself into a ball, with the sharp spines sticking out everywhere. The spaniel, snapping at the animal, runs these quills deep into his jowl; he draws back, snaps again, shakes his head, and then tries a third time, with bloodspots round his mouth.

Every repulse embitters him--his semi-whine expresses intense annoyance, and if left alone there he would stay till covered with blood.

But the older dogs sometimes learn the trick: they then roll the hedgehog over with a paw, touching it gently, so as not to run the spines in, till the depression comes uppermost where the hedgehog has tucked his head inwards. This is the only vulnerable place, and with one desperate bite the dog thrusts his teeth in there, seizes the nose, and then has the hedgehog in his power. The young of the hedgehog are amusing little things, and try to roll themselves up in precisely the same manner; but they cannot close the aperture where they tuck their heads in so completely. Though invisible during the suns.h.i.+ne, hiding so carefully as to be rarely found, when the dew begins to gather thickly on the gra.s.s and the shades deepen they issue forth, and if you remain quite still show no fear at all. While waiting in a dry ditch I have often had a hedgehog come rustling slightly along the bottom till he reached my boot; then he would go up the 'sh.o.r.e' of the ditch out among the gra.s.s hunting for beetles and the creeping things which he likes most.

In some places they are numerous; one or two other meadows on the farm beside the home-field are favourite haunts of theirs, and five or six may be found out feeding within a short distance. When all is still they move rapidly through the gra.s.s--quite a run; much quicker than they appear capable of moving. The plough lads, if they find one, carry it to a pond, knowing that nothing but water will make it unroll voluntarily--no knocks or kicks; but the moment it touches the water it uncoils. Now and then a labourer will cook a hedgehog and eat it; some of them will eat a full-grown rook at any time they chance to shoot it, notwithstanding the bitter flavour of the bird, only taking out a part of the back. Those who have had some a.s.sociation with the gipsies or semi-gipsies seem most addicted to this kind of food.

In the opposite direction to the ash copse, and about half a mile north of Wick farmhouse, there rises above the oak and ash trees what looks like the topmast and yard of a s.h.i.+p lying at anchor or in dock, the hull hidden by the branches. It is the top of an immensely tall and gaunt fir tree, whose thin and perhaps dying boughs project almost at right angles. This landmark, visible over the level meadows for a considerable distance, stands in that little enclosed meadow which has once before been mentioned as one of the favourite resorts of birds and wild animals.

From the ash copse the travelling parties come down the highway hedge to the orchard: then, crossing the orchard and road, they enter another thick hedge, which continues in the same general direction; and finally, following it, arrive at this small green mead walled in by trees and mounds so broad as to resemble elongated copses. The mead itself may perhaps be two acres in extent, but it does not appear so much: the part visible on first glancing over the gateway can hardly exceed an acre.

The rest is formed of nooks--deep indentations, so to say--not more than six or eight yards wide at the entrance, and running up to a point. Of these there are four or five--recesses in the ma.s.sive walls of green.

These corners are caused by the mound following the curiously winding course of a brook which flows just without on the left side; and without on the right side, runs a second brook, whose direction is much straighter and current slower. These two meet at the top of the mead, and then, forming a junction, make a deep, swift stream, flowing beside a series of water-meadows--broad, level, and open, like a plain--which are irrigated from it. The mounds in the angle where the brooks join enclose a large s.p.a.ce planted with osiers, and inside the hedges all round the mead there is a wide, deep ditch, always full of slowly moving water: so that the field is really surrounded by a double moat; and in one corner, in addition, there is a pond hidden by maple thickets from within, and intended for the use of cattle in the adjoining field. The nearest house is several meadows distant, and no footpath pa.s.ses near, so that the spot is peculiarly quiet. These mounds, hedges, osier-bed, and brooks, occupy an area nearly or quite equal to the s.p.a.ce where cattle can feed.

Upon the fir tree a heron perches frequently in the daytime, because from that great elevation he can command an extensive view and feels secure against attack. Whenever he visits the water-meadows, sailing thither from the shallow lake (one of whose creeks approaches the ash copse), he almost always rests here before descending to the field to take a good look round. The heron is a most suspicious bird: when he alights in the water-meadows here he stalks about in the very middle of the great field, far out of reach of the gun. If ever he ventures to the brook, it is not till after a careful survey from the fir tree, his tower of observation; and, when in the brook, his long neck is every now and then extended, that he may gaze above the banks.

By the gateway, reached by crossing a rude bridge for the waggons, wild hops festoon the thickets. Behind the maple bushes in the corner the water of the pond, overhung with willow, is dark--almost black in the depth of shadow. Out of it a narrow and swift current runs into that slow straight brook which bounds the right side of the meadow. Here in the long gra.s.s and rushes growing luxuriantly between the underwood lurk the moorhens, building their nests on bunches of rushes against the bank and almost level with the water. Though but barely hatched, and chips of sh.e.l.l clinging to their backs, the tiny fledglings swim at once if alarmed. When a little older they creep about on the miniature terraces formed along the banks by the constant running to and fro of water-rats, or stand on a broken branch bent down by its own weight into the water, yet still attached to the stem, puffing up their dark feathers like a black ball.

If all be quiet, the moorhens come out now and then into the meadow; and then, as they stand upright out of the water, the peculiar way in which their tails, white marked, are turned upwards is visible. The bill is of a fine colour--almost the 'orange-tawny' of the blackbird, set in thick red coral at its base. Under the shallow water at the mouth of the pond the marks of their feet on the mud may be traced: they run swiftly, and depend upon that speed and the skilful tricks they practise in diving--turning back and dodging under water like a hare in the fields--to escape from pursuit, rather than on their wings. Through the thick green flags they creep, and into the holes the water-rats have made, or behind and under the natural cavities in the stoles upon the bank. They beat the water with their wings when they rise, showering the spray on either side, for a short distance, and then, ascending on an inclined plane, fly heavily, but with some strength.

At night is their time of journeying, when they come down from the lake or return to it, uttering a weird cry in the darkened atmosphere. By day, as they swim to and fro in the flags and through the duckweed, shaded from the hot sun under willow and aspen, they call to each other, not unpleasantly, a note something like 'croog,' with a twirl of the 'r.' In summer they do not move far from the place they have chosen to breed in: in the frosts of winter they work their way up the brooks, or fly at night, but usually come back to the old spot. The dabchick, a slender bird, haunts the pond here too, diving even more quickly than the moorhen.

Nut-tree bushes grow along the bank of the brook on this side--the nuts are a smaller sort than usual; and beside the wet ditch within the mound and on the 'sh.o.r.e,' wherever the scythe has not reached, the meadow-sweet rears its pale flowers. At evening, if it be sultry, and on some days, especially before a thunderstorm, the whole mead is full of the fragrance of this plant, which lines the inside ditch almost everywhere. So heavy and powerful is its odour that the still motionless air between the thick hedges becomes oppressive, and it is a relief to issue forth into the open fields away from the perfume and the brooding heat. But by day it is pleasant to linger in the shadow and inhale its sweetness--if you are not nervous of snakes, for there is one here and there in the gra.s.s gliding away at the jar of the earth under your footstep. Warmth and moisture favour their increase, as on a larger scale in tropic lands; and parts of the mead are often under water when a freshet comes down the brooks so choked with flags that they cannot carry it away quickly.

The osier-bed in the angle where the brooks join is on slightly higher ground, for although the withy likes water at its roots it should not stand in it. Springing across the ditch, and entering among the tall slender wands, which, though they look so thick part aside easily, you may find on the mound behind the b.u.t.t of an oak sawn just above the ground; and there, in the shade of the reeds, and with a cool breeze now and again coming along the course of the stream, it is delicious in the heat of summer to repose and listen to the murmur of the water.

The moorhens come down the current slowly, searching about among the flags; the reed warblers are busy in the hedge; at the mouth of his hole sits a water-rat rubbing his face between his paws; across the stream comes his mate, swimming slowly with one end of a long green sedge in her mouth, and the rest towed behind on the surface. They are the beavers of our streams--amusing, intelligent little creatures, utterly different in habits from the rat of the drain. Move but a hand, and instantly they fall rather than dive into the water, making a sound like 'thock' as they strike it; and then they run along the bottom, or seem to do so, as swiftly as on dry land. But in a few minutes out they come again, being at the same time extremely timid and as quickly rea.s.sured; so that if you remain perfectly still they will approach within a yard.

Where the two brooks meet a hollow willow tree hangs over the brown pool--brown with suspended sand and dead leaves slowly rotating under the surface--where the swirl of the meeting currents, one swift and shallow the other deeper and stronger, has scooped out a basin. A waving line upon the surface marks where the two streams shoulder each other and strive for mastery, and its curve, yielding now to this side now to that, responds to their varying volume and weight. While the under-currents sweep ever slowly round, whirling leaf and dead black soddened twigs over the hollow, the upper streams are forced together unwillingly by the narrowing sh.o.r.es, and throw themselves with a bubbling rush onwards. Through the brown water, from under the stooping willow whose age bows it feebly, there s.h.i.+ne now and again silvery streaks deep down as the roach play to and fro. There, too, come the perch; they are waiting for the insects falling off the willows and the bushes, and for the food brought down by the streams.

'Hus.h.!.+' it is the rustle of the reeds, their heads are swaying--a reddish brown now, later on in the year a delicate feathery white. Seen from beneath, their slender tips, as they gracefully sweep to and fro, seem to trace designs upon the blue dome of the sky. A whispering in the reeds and tall gra.s.ses: a faint murmuring of the waters: yonder, across the broad water-meadow, a yellow haze hiding the elms.

In the nooks and corners on the left side of the mead the hemlock rears its sickly-looking stem; the mound is broad and high, and thickly covered with gra.s.ses, for the most part dead and dry. These form a warm cover for the fox: there is usually one hiding somewhere here, the mead being so quiet. Where the ground is often flooded watercress has spread out into the gra.s.s, growing so profusely that now the water is low it might be mown by the scythe. And everywhere in their season, the beautiful forget-me-nots nestle on the sh.o.r.es among the flags, where the water, running slower at the edge, lingers to kiss their feet.

Once, some five-and-twenty years ago, a sportsman startled a great bird out of the spot where the streams join, and shot it, thinking it was a heron. But seeing that it was no common heron, he had it examined, and it was found to be a bittern, and as such was carefully preserved. It was the last visit of bitterns to the place; even then they were so rare as not to be recognised: now the progress of agriculture has entirely banished them.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

THE WARREN--RABBIT-BURROWS--FERRETS--THE QUARRY--THE FOREST--SQUIRRELS-- DEER--DYING RABBIT--A HAWK.

Under the trunks of the great trees the hedges are usually thinner, and need repairing frequently; and so it happens that at the top of the home-field, besides the gap leading into the ash copse, there is another some distance away beneath a mighty oak. By climbing up the mound, and pus.h.i.+ng through the brake fern which grows thickly between the bushes, entrance is speedily gained to the wide rolling stretch of open pasture called the Warren. The contrast with the small enclosed meadow just left is very striking. A fresh breeze comes up from the lake, which, though not seen in this particular spot, borders the plain-like field in one part.

The ground is not level; it undulates, now sinking into wide hollows, now rising in rounded ridges, and the turf (not mown but grazed) is elastic under the foot, almost like that of the downs in the distance.

This rolling surface increases the sense of largeness--of width--because it is seldom possible to see the whole of the field at once. In the hollows the ridges conceal its real extent; on the ridges a corresponding rise yonder suggests another valley. The two rows of tall elms--some hundreds of yards apart--the scattered hawthorn bushes and solitary trees, groups of cattle in the shade, and sheep grazing by the far-away hedge, give the aspect of a wilder park, the more pleasant because of its wildness.

Near about the centre, where the land is most level, an unexpected slope goes down into a cuplike depression. This green crater may perhaps have been formed by digging for sand--so long ago that the turf has since grown over smoothly. Standing at the bottom the sides conceal all but the sky overhead. Some few dead leaves of last year, not yet decayed though bleached and brittle, lie here at rest from the winds that swept them over the plain. Silky b.a.l.l.s of thistledown come irresolutely rolling over the edge, now this way now that: some rise and float across, some follow the surface and cling awhile to the bennets in the hollow. Pale blue harebells, drooping from their slender stems here and there, meditate with bowed heads, as if full of tender recollections.

Now, on hands and knees (the turf is dry and soft), creep up one side of the bowl-like hollow, where, the thistles make a parapet on the edge, and from behind it look out upon the ground all broken up into low humps, some covered with nettles, others plainly heaps of sand. It is the site of an immense rabbit-burrow, the relic of an old warren which once occupied half the field. The nettle-covered heaps mark old excavations; where the sand shows, there the miners have been recently at work. At the sound of approaching footsteps those inhabitants that had been abroad hastily rushed into their caves, but now (after waiting awhile, and forgetting that the adjacent hollow might hide the enemy) a dozen or more have come forth within easy gunshot. Though a few like this are always looking in and out all through the day, it is not till the approach of evening that they come out in any number.

This is a favourite spot from whence to get a shot at them, but the aim must be deadly, or the rabbit will escape though never so severely wounded. The holes are so numerous that he has never more than a yard to scramble, and as he goes down into the earth his own weight carries him on. If he can but live ten seconds after the lead strikes him, he will generally escape you. Watching patiently (without firing), after the twilight has deepened into night presently you are aware of a longer, larger creature than a rabbit stealing out, seeming to travel close to the earth: it is a badger. There are almost always a couple somewhere about the warren. Their residence is easily discovered because of the huge heap of sand thrown out from the rabbit-hole they have chosen; and it is this ease of discovery that has caused the diminution of their numbers by shot or spade.

The ground sounds hollow underneath the foot--perhaps half an acre is literally bored away under the surface; and you have to thread your way in and out a labyrinth of holes, the earth about some of them perceptibly yielding to your weight. There must be waggon-loads of the sand that has been thrown out. Beyond this central populous quarter suburbs of burrows extend in several directions, and there are detached settlements fifty and a hundred yards away. In ferreting this place the greatest care has to be taken that the ferret is lined with a long string, or so fed that he will not lie in; otherwise, if he is not picked up the moment he appears at the mouth of the hole, he will become so excited at the number of rabbits, and so thirsty for blood, that he will refuse to come forth.

To dig for him is hopeless in that catacomb of tunnels; there is nothing for it but to send a man day after day to watch, and if possible to seize him while pa.s.sing along the upper ground from one bury to another.

In time thirst will drive him to wander; there is no water near this dry, sandy, and rather elevated spot, and blood causes great thirst.

Then he will roam across the open, and by-and-by reach the hedges, where in the ditch some water is sure to be found in winter, when ferreting is carried on. So that, if a ferret has been lost some time, it is better to look for him round the adjacent hedges than in the warren.

Long after leaving the bury it is as well to look to your footsteps, because of solitary rabbit-holes hidden by the gra.s.s growing up round and even over them. If the foot sinks unexpectedly into one of these, a sprained ankle or even a broken bone may result. Most holes have sand round the mouth, and may therefore be seen even in the dusk; but there are others also used which have no sand at the mouth, the gra.s.s growing at the very edge. Those that have sand have been excavated from without, from above; those that have not, have been opened from below.

The rabbit has pushed his way up from an old bury, so that the sand he dug fell down behind him into the larger bole.

The same thing may be seen in banks, though then the holes worked from within are not so much concealed by gra.s.s. These holes are always very much smaller than the others, some so small that one might doubt how a rabbit could force his body through them. The reason why the other tunnels appear so much larger is because the rabbit has no means of 'shoring' up his excavation with planks and timbers, and no 'cage' with which to haul up the sand he has moved; so that he must make the mouth wider than is required for the pa.s.sage of his body, in order to get the stuff out behind him. He can really creep through a much smaller aperture. At night especially, when walking near a bury situate in the open field, beware of putting your foot into one of these holes, which will cause an awkward fall if nothing worse. Some of the older holes, now almost deserted, are, too, so hidden by nettles and coa.r.s.e gra.s.s as to be equally dangerous.

The hereditary attachment of wild animals for certain places is very noticeable at the warren. Though annually ferreted, shot at six months out of the twelve, and trapped--though weasels and foxes prey on the inhabitants--still they cling to the spot. They may be decimated by the end of January, but by September the burrows are as full as ever.

Weasels and stoats of course come frequently, bent on murder, but often meet their own doom through over-greediness; for some one generally comes along with a gun once during the day, and if there be any commotion among the rabbits, waits till the weasel or stoat appears at the mouth of a hole, and sends a charge of shot at him. These animals get caught, too, in the gins, and altogether would do better to stay in the hedgerows.

The gra.s.s of this great pasture has a different appearance to that in the meadows which are mown for hay. It is closer and less uniformly green, because of the innumerable dead fibres. There are places which look almost white from the bennets which the cattle leave standing to die after the seeds have fallen, and shrink as their sap dries up.

Somewhat earlier in the summer, bright yellow strips and patches, like squares of praying-carpet thrown down upon the sward, dotted the slopes: it was the bird's-foot lotus growing so thickly as to overpower the gra.s.s. Mushrooms nestle here and there: those that grow in the open, far from hedge and tree, are small, and the gills of a more delicate salmon colour. Under the elms yonder a much larger variety may be found, which, though edible, are coa.r.s.er.

Where a part of the lake comes up to the field is a long-disused quarry, whose precipices face the water like a cliff. Thin gra.s.ses have grown over the excavations below: the thistles and nettles have covered the heaps of rubbish thrown aside. The steep inaccessible walls of hardened sand are green with minute vegetation. Along the edge above runs a shallow red-brown band--it is the soil which nourishes the roots of the gra.s.ses of the field: beneath it comes small detached stones in sand; these fall out, loosened by the weather, and roll down the precipice.

Then, still deeper, the sand hardens almost into stone, and finally comes the stone itself; but before the workmen could get out more than a thin layer they reached the level of the water in the lake, which came in on them, slowly forming pools.

These are now bordered by aquatic gra.s.ses, and from their depths every now and then the newts come up to the surface. In the sand precipices are small round holes worked out by the martins--there must be scores of them. Where narrow terraces afford access to four-footed creatures, the rabbits, too, have dug out larger caves; some of them rise upwards, and open on the field above, several yards from the edge of the cliff. The sheep sometimes climb up by these ledges; they are much more active than they appear to be, and give the impression that in their native state they must have rivalled the goats. The lambs play about in dangerous-looking places without injury: the only risk seems to be of their coming unexpectedly on the cliff from above; if they begin from below they are safe. A wood-pigeon may frequently be found in the quarry--sometimes in the pits, sometimes on the ledges high up--and the goldfinches visit it for the abundant thistledown.

Between the excavated hollow and the lake there is but a narrow bank of stone and sand overgrown with sward; and, reclining there, the eye travels over the broad expanse of water, almost level with it, as one might look along a gun-barrel. Yonder the roan cattle are in the water up to their knees; the light air ripples the surface, and the suns.h.i.+ne playing on the wavelets glistens so brilliantly that the eye can scarcely bear it; and the cattle ponder dreamily, standing in a flood of liquid gold.

A path running from Wick across the fields to the distant downs leads to the forest. It would be quite possible to pa.s.s by the edge without knowing that it was so near, for a few scattered trees on the hillside would hardly attract attention. Nothing marks where the trees cease: thin, wide apart, and irregularly placed, because planted by nature, they look but a group on the down. There is indeed a boundary, but it is at a distance and concealed: it is the trout stream in the hollow far below, winding along the narrow valley, and hidden by osier-beds and willow pollards.

Ascending the slope of the down towards the trees, the brown-tinted gra.s.s feels slippery under foot: this wiry gra.s.s always does feel so as autumn approaches. A succession of detached hawthorn bushes--like a hedge with great gaps--grow in a line up the rising ground. The dying vines of the bryony trail over them--one is showing its pale greenish white flowers, while the rest bear heavy bunches of berries. A last convolvulus, too, has a single pink-streaked bell, though the bough to which it holds is already partly bare of leaves. The touch of autumn is capricious, and pa.s.ses over many trees to fix on one which stands out glowing with colour, while on the rest a dull green lingers. Near the summit a few bunches of the brake fern rise out of the gra.s.s; then the foremost trees are reached, beeches as yet but faintly tinted here and there. Their smooth irregularly round trunks are of no great height-- both fern and trees at the edge seem stunted, perhaps because they have to bear the brunt and break the force of the western gales sweeping over the hills.