Wisps of hay hang from the lower boughs of
the oaks where they brushed against the passing load.

After a time, when the corn is ripening, the herb betony flowers on the
mounds under the oaks. Following the lane down the hill and across the
small furze common at the bottom, the marks of traffic fade away, the
dust ceases, and is succeeded by sward. The hedgerows on either side are
here higher than ever, and are thickly fringed with bramble bushes,
which sometimes encroach on the waggon ruts in the middle, and are
covered with flowers, and red, and green, and ripe blackberries
together.

Green rushes line the way, and green dragon flies dart above them.
Thistledown is pouting forth from the swollen tops of thistles crowded
with seed. In a gateway the turf has been worn away by waggon wheels and
the hoofs of cart horses, and the dry heat has pulverised the crumbling
ruts. Three hen pheasants and a covey of partridges that have been
dusting themselves here move away without much haste at the approach of
footsteps--the pheasants into the thickets, and the partridges through
the gateway. The shallow holes in which they were sitting can be traced
on the dust, and there are a few small feathers lying about.

A barley field is within the gate; the mowers have just begun to cut it
on the opposite side. Next to it is a wheat field; the wheat has been
cut and stands in shocks. From the stubble by the nearest shock two
turtle doves rise, alarmed, and swiftly fly towards a wood which bounds
the field. This wood, indeed, upon looking again, clearly bounds not
this field only, but the second and the third, and so far as the eye can
see over the low hedges of the corn, the trees continue. The green lane
as it enters the wood, becomes wilder and rougher at every step,
widening, too, considerably.

In the centre the wheels of timber carriages, heavily laden with trunks
of trees which were dragged through by straining teams in the rainy days
of spring, have left vast ruts, showing that they must have sunk to the
axle in the soft clay. These then filled with water, and on the water
duck-weed grew, and aquatic grasses at the sides. Summer heats have
evaporated the water, leaving the weeds and grasses prone upon the still
moist earth.

Rushes have sprung up and mark the line of the ruts, and willow stoles,
bramble bushes, and thorns growing at the side, make, as it were, a
third hedge in the middle of the lane. The best path is by the w