Читать книгу Wild Life in a Southern County - Richard Jefferies - Страница 7

Once now and then in the cycle of the years there comes a summer which to the hills is almost like a fever to the blood, wasting and drying up with its heat the green things upon which animal life depends, so that drought and famine go hand in hand. The days go by and grow to weeks, the weeks lengthen to months, and still no rain. The sun pours down his burning rays, which become hotter as the season advances; the sky is blue and beautiful over the hills—beautiful, but pitiless to the bleating flocks beneath. The breeze comes up from the south, bringing with it white clouds sailing at an immense height, with openings between like azure lakes or aerial Mediterraneans landlocked by banks of vapour.

These, if you watch them from the rampart, slowly dissolve; fragments break away from the mass as the edges of the polar glaciers slip off the ice-cliff into the sea, only these are noiseless. The fragment detached grows visibly thinner and more translucent, its margin stretching out in an uneven fringe: the process is almost exactly like the unravelling of a spotless garment, the threads wavering and twisting as they are carried along by the current, diminishing till they fade and are lost in the ocean of blue. This breaking of the clouds is commonly seen in weather that promises to be fine. From the brow here, you may note a solitary cloud just risen above the horizon; it floats slowly towards us; presently it divides into several parts; these, again, fall away in jagged, irregular pieces like flecks of foam. By the time it has reached the zenith these flecks have lengthened out, and shortly afterwards the cloud has entirely melted and is gone. The delicate hue, the contrast of the fleecy white with the deepest azure, the ever-changing form, the light shining through the gauzy texture, the gentle dreamy motion, lend these clouds an exquisite beauty.

After a while the faint breeze increases, but changes in character; it blows steadily, and the ‘sish sish’ of the bennets as it rushes through them becomes incessant. A sense of oppression weighs on the chest—in the midst of the wind, on the verge of the hill, you sigh for a breath of air. This is not air: it is simply heat in motion. It is like the simoom of the desert—producing a feeling of intense weariness. Previously the distant ridges of the downs were shaded by a dim haze hovering over them, toning the rolling curves and softening the bolder bluffs. Now they become distinct; each line is drawn clearly and stands out; the definition is like that which occurs before rain, only without the illusion of nearness.

But the hot wind blows and the rain does not come: the sky is open and free from clouds, less blue perhaps, but harder in tint. The nights are bright and clear and warm; you may sit here on the turf till midnight and find no dew, and still feel the languid, enervating influence of the hot blast. This goes in time, and is succeeded by heavy morning mists hanging like a cloak over the hills and filling up the hollows. They roll away as the day advances, and there is the sun bright as ever in the midst of the cloudless sky. The shepherds say the mists carry away the rain; certainly it does not come.

Every now and then promising signs exhibit themselves. A black bank of vapour receives the setting sun, and in the east huge mountainous clouds with beetling precipices and caverns, in which surely the thunder lurks, swell and roll upwards in the hush of the evening. The farmer unrolls his canvas over the new-made hayrick, which is not yet thatched, thinking that a torrent will descend in the night; but no, the morrow is the same. It is a peculiarity of our usually changeable climate that when once the weather has become thoroughly settled either to dry or wet, no signs of alteration are of any value, true as they may be at other times.

So the heat continues and the drought increases. The ‘land-springs’ breaking out by the sides of the fields have long since disappeared; the true springs run feebly as the stores of water in the interior of the earth gradually grow less. Great cracks open in the clay of the meadows down below in the vale—rifts, wide and deep, into which you may thrust your walking-stick to the handle. Up here on the hills the turf grows hard and inelastic; it loses that ‘springy’ feel under the foot which makes it so pleasant to walk upon. The grass becomes dull in tint and touches like wire—all the sap dried from it, and nothing but fibre left. Beneath the chalk is moistureless, and nothing can grow on it. The byroads and paths made with the chalk or ‘rubble’ glare in the sunlight, and the flints scattered so thickly about the ploughed fields seem to radiate heat. All things that should look green are brown and dusty; even the leaves on the elms seem dusty. The wheat only flourishes, tall and strong—deep tinted yellow here, a ruddy, golden bronze yonder, with ears full and heavy, rich and glorious to gaze upon. Insects multiply and replenish the earth after their fashion exceedingly; the spiders are busy as may be, not only those that watch from their webs lying in wait, but those that chase their prey through the grass as dogs do game.

But under the beautiful sky and the glorious sun there rises up a pitiful cry the livelong day: it is the quavering bleat of the sheep as their strength slowly ebbs out of them for the lack of food. Green crops and roots fail, the aftermath in the meadows beneath will not grow, week after week ‘keep’ becomes scarcer and more expensive, and there is, in fact, a famine. Of all animals a starved sheep is the most wretched to contemplate, not only because of the angularity of outline, and the cavernous depressions where fat and flesh should be, but because the associations of many generations have given the sheep a peculiar claim upon humanity. They hang entirely on human help. They watch for the shepherd as though he were their father; and when he comes he can do no good, so that there is no more painful spectacle than a fold during a drought upon the hills.

Once upon a time, passing on foot for a distance of some twenty-five miles across these hills and grassy uplands, I could not help comparing the scene to what travellers tell us of desert lands and foreign famines. The whole of that long summer’s day, as I hastened southwards, eager for the beach and the scent of the sea, I passed flocks of dying sheep: in the hollows by the way their skeletons were here and there to be seen, the gaunt ribs protruding upwards in the horrible manner that the ribs of dead creatures do. Crowds of flies buzzed in the air. Upon the hurdles perched the crow, bold with over-feasting, and hardly turning to look at me, waiting there till the next lamb should fall and the ‘spirit of the beast go downwards.’ Happy England, that experiences these things so seldom, and even then so locally that barely one in ten hears of or sees them!

The cattle of course suffer too; all day long files of water-carts go down into the hollows where the springs burst forth, and at such times half the work of the farm consists in fetching the precious liquid perhaps a mile or more. Even in ordinary summers there is often a difficulty of this kind; and there are some farmhouses whose water for household uses has to be brought fully half a mile. Of recent years more wells have been sunk, but there are still too few for the purpose. The effect of water in determining the settlements of human beings is clearly shown here. You may walk mile after mile on the ridges and pass nothing but a shed; the houses are in the hollows, the ‘coombes’ or ‘bottoms,’ as they are called, where the springs run. The villages on the downs are generally on a ‘bourne,’ or winter watercourse.

In summer it is a broad winding trench with low green banks, along whose bed you may stroll dry-shod, with the yellow corn on either hand reaching above your head. A few sedges here and there, and that peculiar whitened appearance left when water has passed over vegetation, betoken that once there was a stream. It is like the watercourses and rivers of the East, which are the roads of the traveller till the storm comes, and, lo! in the morning is a rushing flood. Near the village some water is to be seen in the pond which has been deepened out to hold it, and which is, too, kept up here by a spring.

In winter the bourne often has the appearance of a broad brook: you may observe where the current has arranged the small flints washed in from the fields by the rain. As the villages are on the lesser ‘bournes,’ so the towns are placed on the banks of the rivers these fall into. There may generally be found a row of villages and hamlets on the last slope of the downs, where the hills sink finally away into the plain and vale, so that if anyone went along the edge of the hills he would naturally think the district well populated. But if instead of following the edge he penetrated into the interior he would find the precise contrary to be the case. Just at the edge there is water, the ‘heads’ of the innumerable streams that make the vale so verdant. In the days when wealth consisted chiefly in flocks and herds, men would naturally settle where there were ‘water-brooks.’

When at last the drought ceases, and the rain does come, it often pours with tropical vehemence; so that the soil of the fields upon the slopes is carried away into the brooks, and the furrows are filled up level with the sand washed out from the clods, the lighter particles of earth floating suspended in the stream, the heavier sand remaining behind. Then, sometimes, as the slow labourer lingers over the ground, with eyes ever bent downwards, he spies a faint glitter, and picks up an antique coin in his horny fingers: coins are generally found after a shower, on the same principle that the gold-seekers wash away the auriferous soil in the ‘cradle,’ and lay bare the yellow atoms. Such coins, too, are sometimes of the same precious metal, ancient and rude. Sometimes the edge of the hoe clinks against a coin, thus at last discovered after so many centuries; yet which for years must have lain so near the surface as to have been turned over and over again by the ploughshare, though unnoticed.

The magnitude of the space enclosed by the earthwork, the height of the rampart and depth of the fosse, show that it was originally intended to be occupied by a large force. With modern artillery, the mitrailleuse, and above all the breech-loading rifle, a comparatively small number of men could hold a commanding position like this: a steep ascent on three sides, and on the fourth a narrow level ridge, easily swept by their fire. But when this entrenchment was thrown up—the chalky earth and flints probably carried up in osier-baskets, for they do not seem to have had wheelbarrows in those times—every single yard of rampart required its spear or threatening arrow, so as to present an unbroken rank along the summit. If not; the enemy approaching to close quarters and attacking several places at once would find gaps through which they might pour into the camp. It seems, therefore, evident that these works once sheltered an army; and, looking at their massive character, it is difficult to resist the conclusion that they were not temporary trenches merely, but were permanently garrisoned.

There is another alternative; they may have been a place of refuge for the surrounding population in the nameless wars waged between rival kings. In that case they would, when resorted to, contain a still larger number of persons; women and children and aged men would be included, and to these must be added cattle and sheep. Now, reflecting upon these considerations, and recollecting the remarks previously made upon the lack of water on these hills, the very curious question arises, How did such an army, or such a refugee population with cattle and horses, supply themselves with sufficient water for drinking purposes? The closest examination of the camp itself fails to yield even a suggestion for an answer.

There is not the slightest trace of a well, and it may fairly be questioned whether a well would have been practicable at that date. For this bold brow itself stands high enough; but then, in addition, it is piled on an elevated plateau or table-land, beneath which again is the level at which springs break out. The wells of the district all commence on this table-land or plain. A depression, too, is chosen for the purpose, and their depth is about ninety feet on the average: many are much deeper. But when to this depth the task of digging right down through the hill piled up above the plain is added, the difficulty becomes extreme.

On walking round the entrenchment at the bottom of the fosse, and keeping an eye upon the herbage—the best of all guides—one spot may be noticed where there grows a little of that ‘rowetty’ grass seen in the damp furrows of the meadows. But there is no sign whatever of a basin or excavation to catch and contain this slight moisture—slight indeed, for the earth is as hard and impenetrable here as elsewhere, and this faint moisture is evidently caused by the rainfall draining down the slope of the rampart. Looking next outside the works for the source of such a supply, a spring will be found in a deep coombe, or bottom, about 800 yards—say, half a mile—from the nearest part of the fosse, reckoning in a straight line. Then, in bringing up water from this spring, which may be supposed to have been done in skins, a double ascent had to be made: first up on to the level plateau, here very narrow, next up the steep down itself. Those only who have had experience of the immense labour of watering cattle on the hills can estimate the work this must have been. An idea is obtained of the value of an elevated position in early warfare, when men for the sake of its advantage were found willing to submit to such toil.

That, however, is not all—foraging parties fetching water must have been liable to be cut off from the main body; there were no cannon then to cover a sortie, and if the enemy were in sufficient force and took possession of the spring, they could compel an engagement, or drive the besieged to surrender rather than endure the tortures of thirst. So that a study of these English hills—widely different as are the conditions of time and place—may throw a strong light upon many an incident of ancient history. There are no traces remaining of any covered way or hollow dyke leading down the slope in the direction of the spring; but some such traces do seem to exhibit themselves in two places—at the rear of the earthwork along the ridge of the hill, and down the steepest and shortest ascent. The first does not come up to the entrenchment, being separated by a wide interval; the latter does, and may possibly have been used as a covered way, though now much obliterated and too shallow for the purpose. The rampart itself is in almost perfect preservation; in one spot the soil has slightly slipped, but form and outline are everywhere distinct.

In endeavouring, however, for a moment to glance back into the unwritten past, and to reconstruct the conditions of some fourteen or fifteen centuries since, it must not be forgotten that the downs may then have presented a different appearance. There is a tradition lingering still that they were in the olden times almost covered with wood. I have tried to fix this tradition—to focus it and give it definite shape; but like a mist visible from a distance yet unseen when you are actually in it, it refuses to be grasped. Still, there it is. The old people say that the king—they have no idea which king—could follow the chase for some forty miles across these hills, through a succession of copses, woods, and straggling covers, forming a great forest. To look now from the top of the rampart over the rolling hills, the idea is difficult to admit at first. They are apparently bare, huge billowy swells of green, with wide hollows, cultivated on the lower levels, but open and unenclosed for mile after mile, almost without hedges, and seemingly treeless save for the gnarled and stunted hawthorns—apparently a bare expanse; but more minute acquaintance leads to different conclusions.

Here, to begin with, on the same ridge as the earthwork and not a quarter of a mile distant, is a small clump of wind-harassed trees, growing on the very edge. They are firs and beech, and, though so thoroughly exposed to furious gales, have attained a fair height even in that thin soil. Beech and fir, then, can grow here. Away yonder on another ridge is another such a clump, indistinct from the distance; though there is a pleasant breeze blowing and their boughs must sway to it, they appear motionless. With the exception of the poplar, whose tall top as it slowly bends to the blast describes such an arc as to make its motion visible afar, the most violent wind fails to enable the eye to separate the lines of light coming so nearly parallel from the branches of an elm or an oak, even at a comparatively short distance. The tree looks perfectly still, though you know it must be vibrating to the trunk and loosening the earth with the wrench at its anchoring roots.

In more than one of the deep coombes there is a row of elms—out of sight from this post of vantage—whose tops are about level with the plain, where you may stand on the edge and throw a stone into the rook’s nest facing you. On a lower spur, which juts out into the valley, is a broad ash wood. Little more than a mile from hence, on the most barren and wildest part of the down, there yet linger some stunted oaks interspersed among the ash copses which to this day are called ‘the Chace’ and are proved by documentary evidence to stand on the site of an ancient deer forest. A deer forest, too, there is (though seven or eight miles distant, yet on the same range of hills) to this very day tenanted by the antlered stag. Such evidence could be multiplied; but this is enough to establish the fact that for the whole breadth of the hills to have been covered with wood is well within possibility.

I may even go further, and say that, if left to itself, it would in a few generations revert to that condition; for this reason: that when a clump of trees is planted here, experience has shown that it is not so much the wind or the soil which hinders their growth as the attacks of animals wild and tame. Rabbits in cold, frosty weather have a remarkable taste for the bark of the young ash-saplings: they nibble it off as clean as if stripped with a knife, of course frequently killing the plant. Cattle—of which a few wander on the hills—are equally destructive to the young green shoots or ‘tops’ of many trees. Young horses especially will bark almost any smooth-barked tree, not to eat, but as if to relieve their teeth by tearing it off. In the meadows all the young oaks that spring up from dropped acorns out in the grass are invariably torn up by cattle and the still closer-cropping sheep. If the sheep and cattle were removed, and the plough stood still for a century, ash and beech and oak and hawthorn would reassert themselves, and these wide, open downs become again a vast forest, as doubtless they were when the beaver and the marten, the wild boar and the wolf, roamed over the country.

This great earthwork, crowning a ridge from whence a view for many miles could have been obtained over the tops of the primeval trees, must then have had a strangely different strategical position to what it now seemingly occupies in the midst of almost treeless hills. Possibly, too, the powerful effect of so many square miles of vegetation in condensing vapour may have had a distinct influence upon the rainfall, and have rendered water more plentiful than now: a consideration which may help to explain the manner in which these ancient forts were held.

The general deficiency of moisture characteristic of these chalk hills is such that it is said agriculture flourishes best upon them in what is called a ‘dropping’ summer, when there is a shower every two or three days, the soil absorbing it so quickly. For the grass and hay crops down below in the vale, and for the arable fields there with a stiff heavy soil, on the other hand, a certain amount of dry weather is desirable, else the plough cannot work in its seasons nor the crops ripen or the harvest be garnered in. So that the old saying was that in a drought the vale had to feed the hill, and in a wet year the hill had to feed the vale: which remains true to a considerable extent, so far at least as the cattle are concerned, and was probably true of men and their food also before the importation of corn in such immense quantities placed both alike free from anxiety on that account. This deficiency of moisture being borne in mind, it is a little curious to find ponds of water on the very summit of the down.

Scarcely a quarter of a mile from the earthwork, and on a level with it—close to the clump of firs and beech alluded to previously—there may be seen on this warm summer day a broad, circular, pan-like depression partially filled with water. Being on the very top of the ridge, and only so far sunk as to hold a sufficient quantity, there is little or no watershed to drain into the pond; neither is there a spring or any other apparent source of supply. It would naturally be imagined that in this exposed position, even if filled to the brim by heavy storms of rain, a week of sultry sunshine would evaporate it to the last drop; instead of which, excepting, of course, unusually protracted spells of dry weather such as only come at lengthy intervals, there will always be found some water here; even under the blazing sunshine a shallow pool remains, and in ordinary times the circular basin is half full.

It is of quite modern construction, and, except indirectly, has no bearing upon the water-supply of the earthwork, having been made within a few years only for the convenience of the stock kept upon the hill farms. Some special care is taken in puddling the bottom and sides to prevent leakage, and a layer of soot is usually employed to repel boring grubs or worms which would otherwise make their holes through and let the water soak into the thirsty chalk beneath. In wet weather the pond quickly fills; once full, it is afterwards kept up by the condensation of the thick, damp mists, the dew and cloud-like vapours, that even in the early mornings of the hot summer days so frequently cling about the downs. These more than supply the waste from evaporation, so that the basin may be called a dew-pond. The mists that hang about the ridges are often almost as laden with moisture as a rain-cloud itself. They deposit a thick layer of tiny bead-like drops upon the coat of the wayfarer, which seem to cling after the manner of oil. Though these hills have not the faintest pretensions to be compared with mountains, yet when the rainy clouds hang low they often strike the higher ridges, which from a distance appear blotted out entirely, and are then receiving a misty shower.

Then there rise up sometimes thick masses of vapour which during the night have gathered over the brooks and water-meadows, the marshy places of the vale, and now come borne on the breeze rolling along the slopes; and, as these pass over the dew-pond, doubtless its colder water condenses that portion which draws down into the depression where it stands. In winter the vapours clinging about the clumps of beech freeze to the boughs, forming, not a rime merely, like that seen in the vale, but a kind of ice-casing, while icicles also depend underneath. Now, if a wind comes sweeping across the hill with sudden blast, these glittering appendages rattle together loudly, and there falls a hail of jagged icy fragments. When one has seen the size and quantity of these, it becomes more easy to understand the amount of water which an intangible vapour may carry with it to be condensed into the pond or congealed upon the tree.

There is another such a pond half a mile or more from the earthwork in another direction, but also on a level, making two upon this high and exposed down. Many others are scattered about—they have become more numerous of late years. Several are situate on the lower plateau, which is also dry enough. Toiling over the endless hills in the summer heats, I have often been driven by necessity of thirst to taste a little of the water contained in them, though well knowing the inevitable result. The water has a dead flavour: it is not stagnant in the sense of impurity, but dead, even when quite clear. In a few moments after tasting it, the mouth dries, with a harsh unpleasant feeling as if some impalpable dusty particles had got into the substance of the tongue. This is caused probably by suspended chalk, of which it tastes; for assuaging thirst, therefore, it is worse than useless in summer: very different is the exquisitely limpid cool liquid which bubbles out in the narrow coombes far below.

The indirect bearing of the phenomena of these dew-ponds upon the water-supply of the ancient fort is found in the evidence they supply that under different conditions the deposit of moisture here might have been very much larger. The ice formed upon the branches of the beech trees in winter proves that water is often present in the atmosphere in large quantities; all it requires is something to precipitate it. Therefore, if these hills were once clothed with forest, as previously suggested, it appears possible that the primitive inhabitants, after all, may have carried on their agriculture with less difficulty, and have been able to store up water in their camps with greater ease, than would be the case at present. This may explain the traces of primeval cultivation to be seen here on the barest bleakest, and most unpromising hillsides. Such traces may be discovered at intervals all along the slope, on the summit, and near the foot of the down at the rear of the entrenchment.

It is easy to pass almost over them without observing the nearly obliterated marks—the faint lines left on the surface by the implements of men in the days when the first Caesar was yet a living memory. These marks are like some of the little used paths which traverse the hills: if you look along way in front you can see them tolerably distinctly, but under your feet they are invisible, the turf being only so slightly worn by wayfarers. So, to find the signs of ancient fields, look for them from a distance as you approach along the slope; then you will see squares and parallelograms dimly defined upon the sward by slightly raised and narrow banks, green with the grass that has grown over them for so many centuries.

They have the appearance sometimes of shallow terraces raised one above the other, rising with the slope of the down. This terrace formation is perhaps occasionally artificial; but in some cases, I think, the natural conformation of the ground has been taken advantage of, having seen terraces where not the faintest trace of cultivation was visible. It is not always easy either to distinguish between the genuine enclosures of ancient days and the trenches left after the decay of comparatively modern fir-plantations, which it is usual to surround with a low mound and ditch. Long after the fir trees have died out the green mound remains; but there are rules by which the two, with a little care, may be distinguished.

The ancient field, in the first place, is generally very much smaller; and there are usually three or four or more in close proximity, divided by the faint green ridges, sometimes roughly resembling in ground-plan the squares of a chess-board. The mound that once enclosed a fir-plantation is much higher, and would be noticed by the most casual observer. It encircles a wide area, often irregular in shape, oval or circular, and does not present the regular internal divisions of the other—which, indeed, would be unnecessary and out of place in a copse.

It has become the fashion of recent years to break up the sward of the downs, to pare off the turf and burn it, and scatter the ashes over the soil newly turned up by the plough; the idea being mainly to keep more sheep by the aid of turnips and green crops than could be grazed upon the grass. In places it answers—in many others not; after two or three crops the yield sometimes falls to next to nothing. There is a ploughed field here right upon the ridge of the down, close to the ancient earthwork, where in dry summers I have seen ripening oats barely a foot high, and barley equally short. With all the resources of modern agriculture, artificial manure, deeper ploughing, and more complete cleaning, such results do not seem altogether commensurate with the labour bestowed. Of course it is not always so, else the enterprise would be at once abandoned. But when I come to think of the ancient tillage in the terraces upon the barren slopes, I find it difficult to see how, with their rude implements, the men of those times could have procured any sustenance from their soil, unless I suppose the conditions different.

If there was forest all around, to condense the vapours rolling over and deposit a heavy dew or grateful rainfall, then they may have found the stubborn earth more fruitful. Trees and brakes, and thickets, too, would give shelter and protect the rising growth from the bitter winds; while when first tilled the soil itself would be rich from the decay of accumulated leaves, dead boughs, and vegetable matter. So that the terrace gardens may have yielded plentifully then, and were probably surrounded with stockades to protect them from the ravages of the beasts of the forest. Now the very site of the ancient town can scarcely be distinguished: the sheep graze, the lambs gambol gaily over it in the sunshine, and the shepherd dozes hard by on the slope while his dog watches the flock.

A long day of rain is often followed by a moderately fine evening—the clouds breaking up as the sun nears the horizon. It happened one summer evening, after just such a day of continuous showers, that I was in a meadow about two miles distant from the hills. The rain had ceased, and the sky was clear overhead of all but a thin film of cloud, through which the blue was visible in places. But westward there was still a bank of vapour concealing the sinking sun; and eastwards, towards the downs, it was also thick and dark. I walked slowly along with a gun, on the inner side of a great hedge which hid the hills, waiting every now and then behind a projecting bush for a rabbit to come out—a couple being wanted. In heavy rain, such as had lasted all day, they generally remain within their ‘buries’—or if one slips out, he usually keeps on the bank, sheltered by stoles and trees, and nibbling a little of the grass that grows there and is comparatively dry. But as evening approaches and the rain ceases, they naturally come forth to break a long fast, and may then be shot.

Some little time passed thus, when, in sauntering along, I came to a gap in the hedge, and glanced through it in the direction of the downs, there partly visible. The idea at once occurred to me that the part of the hills seen through the gap was remarkably high—very much higher and more mountainous than any I had ever visited; and actually, in the abstraction of the moment, half-intent on the rabbits and half perhaps thinking of other things, I resolved to explore that section more thoroughly. Yet, after walking a few yards further, somehow it seemed singular that the great elevation of this down should never previously have been so apparent. In short, growing curious in the matter, I returned to the gap and looked again.

There was no mistake: there was the down rising up against the sky—a huge dusky mountainous hill, exactly the same in outline as I remembered it, quite familiar, and yet entirely strange. There was the old barn near the foot of the slope; above it the black line of a low hedge and mound; on the summit the same old clump of trees; and lastly, a tall column of black smoke rising upwards, as if from a steam plough at work. It was all just the same, but lifted up into the air—the hill grown into a mountain. A second and longer gaze failed to discover the explanation of the apparition: the eye was completely deceived, and yet the mind was not satisfied. But upon getting up into the gap of the hedge, so as to obtain a better view from the mound, the cause of the illusion was at once visible.

Looking through the gap was like looking through a narrow window, only a short section of the hill being within sight; from the elevation of the mound the whole range of hills could be seen at the same time. Then it became immediately apparent that on either side of this great mountain the continuation of the down right and left remained still at its former level. Upon the central hill a cloud was resting, and had for the time taken its exact shape. The ridge itself was dark, and the dark grey vapour harmonised precisely with its hue; so that the real hill and the cloud merged into each other. Either the barn and clump of trees were reproduced or perhaps enlarged and distorted by the refraction: the seeming column of smoke was a fragment of a blacker colour which chanced to be in a nearly perpendicular position. Even when recognised as such, the illusion was still perfect; nor could the eye separate the hill from the unsubstantial vapour.

As I watched it, the apparent column of smoke bent, and its upper part floated away, enlarging just as smoke, its upward motion overcome by the wind, slowly yields to the current. Soon afterwards the light breeze stretched out one end of the mass of cloud, began to roll up the other, and presently lifted it, revealing the real ridge beneath, which grew momentarily more distinctly defined. Finally, the misty bank hung suspended over the down, and slowly sailed eastwards with the wind. Some time afterwards I saw a similar mirage-like enlargement of the down by cloudy vapour resting on it and assuming its contour; but the illusion was not so perfect, because seen from a more open spot, allowing an extended view of the range, and because the cloud was lighter in colour than the hill to which it clung.

These clouds were, of course, passing at a very low elevation above the earth: in rainy weather, although but a few hundred feet high, the ridges are frequently obscured with cloud. The old folk in the vale, whose whole lives have been spent watching and waiting on the weather, say that the hills ‘draw’ the thunder—that wherever a storm arises it always ‘draws’ towards them. If it comes from the west it often splits—one storm going along the ridges to the south, and the other passing over detached hills to the northward; so that the basin between is rarely visited by thunder overhead. They have, too, an old superstition—based apparently, on a text of the Bible—that the thunder always rises originally in the north, though it may reach them from a different direction. For it is their belief also that thunder ‘works round;’ so that after a heavy storm, say in the afternoon, when the air has cleared to all appearance, they will tell you that the sunshine and calm are a deception. In a few hours’ time, or in the course of the night, the storm will return, having ‘worked round:’ and indeed in that locality this is very often the case. It is to be observed that even a small copse will for a short distance in its rear quite divert the course of a breeze; so that a weathercock placed on the leeside is entirely untrustworthy: if the wind really blows from the south and over the copse, the weathercock will sometimes point in precisely the opposite direction, obeying the ‘undertow’ of the gale, as it were, drawing backwards.

In summer especially, I fancy, an effect is sometimes produced by a variation in the electrical condition of comparatively small areas, corresponding perhaps with the difference of soil—one becoming more heated than another. Showers are certainly often of a remarkably local character: a walk of half a mile along a road dark from recent rain will frequently bring you to a place where the dust is white and thick as ever, the line of demarcation sharply marked across the highway. In winter rain takes a wider sweep.

From the elevation of the earthwork on the downs—with a view of mile after mile of plain and vale below—it is easy on a showery summer day to observe the narrow limits of the rain. Dusky streamers, like the train of a vast dark robe, slope downwards from the blacker water-carrying cloud above—downwards and backwards, the upper cloud travelling faster than the falling drops. Between the hill and the rain yonder intervenes a broad space of several miles, and beyond it again stretches a clear opening to the horizon. The streamers sweep along a narrow strip of country which is drenched with rain, while on either side the sun is shining.

It seems reasonable to imagine that in some way that strip of country acts differently for the time being upon the atmosphere immediately above it. So singularly local are these conditions, sometimes, that one farmer will show you a flourishing crop of roots which was refreshed by a heavy shower just in the nick of time, while his neighbour is loudly complaining that he has had no rain. When the sky is overcast—large masses of cloud, with occasional breaks, passing slowly across it at a considerable elevation without rain—sometimes through these narrow slits long beams of light fall aslant upon the distant fields of the vale. They resemble, only on a greatly lengthened scales the beams that may be seen in churches of a sunny afternoon, falling from the upper windows on the tiled floor of the chancel, and made visible by motes in the air. So through such slits in the cloudy roof of the sky the rays of the sun shoot downwards, made visible on their passage by the moisture or the motes floating in the atmosphere. They seem to linger in their place as the clouds drift with scarcely perceptible motion; and the labourers say that the sun is sucking up water there.

In the evening of a fine day the mists may be seen from hence as they rise in the meadows far beneath: beginning first over the brooks, a long white winding vapour marking their course, next extending over the moist places and hollows. Higher in the air darker bars of mist, separate and distinct from the white sheet beneath them, perhaps a hundred feet above it, gradually come into sight as they grow thicker and blacker, one here one yonder—long and narrow in shape. These seem to approach more nearly in character to the true cloud than the mist which hardly rises higher than the hedges. The latter will sometimes move or draw across the meadows when there is no apparent wind, not sufficient to sway a leaf, as if in obedience to light and partial currents created by a variation of temperature in different parts of the same field.

Once now and then, looking at this range of hills from a distance of two or three miles on moonless nights, when it has been sufficiently clear to distinguish them, I have noticed that the particular down on which the earthwork is situate shows more distinctly than the others. By day no difference is apparent; but sometimes by night it seems slightly lighter in hue, and stands out more plainly. This may perhaps be due to some unobserved characteristic of the herbage on its slope, or possibly to the chalky subsoil coming there nearer to the surface. The power of reflecting light possessed by the earth, and varied by different soils or by vegetation, is worth observation.