All These Noises Came To Me Very
Thin And Distinct In The Clear Air.
There was a wonderful
sentiment of distance and atmosphere about the day and the place.
I mounted the hill yet farther by a rough staircase of chalky
footholds cut in the turf. The hills about Wendover and, as far as
I could see, all the hills in Buckinghamshire, wear a sort of hood
of beech plantation; but in this particular case the hood had been
suffered to extend itself into something more like a cloak, and
hung down about the shoulders of the hill in wide folds, instead of
lying flatly along the summit. The trees grew so close, and their
boughs were so matted together, that the whole wood looked as dense
as a bush of heather. The prevailing colour was a dull,
smouldering red, touched here and there with vivid yellow. But the
autumn had scarce advanced beyond the outworks; it was still almost
summer in the heart of the wood; and as soon as I had scrambled
through the hedge, I found myself in a dim green forest atmosphere
under eaves of virgin foliage. In places where the wood had itself
for a background and the trees were massed together thickly, the
colour became intensified and almost gem-like: a perfect fire
green, that seemed none the less green for a few specks of autumn
gold. None of the trees were of any considerable age or stature;
but they grew well together, I have said; and as the road turned
and wound among them, they fell into pleasant groupings and broke
the light up pleasantly.
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