in their contest with the floods
had long grappled in desperate convolutions with the shelving bank of
the stream below, overshadowed the farther end: here also at right
angles was a line of gabled cottages crumbling into ruin and much
overgrown with creepers. They may have been old almshouses, but there
was no sign of habitation, and they seemed abandoned to chattering
sparrows whose draggled nests were everywhere visible in the ivy. Beyond
on the other side of the bridge the stream gurgled toward a sluice that
was now silent; and beyond this, gray buildings deep embowered in elms
and sycamores surrounded what was evidently a mill pool. They walked on
to where the bridge became a road that in contrast with the massed trees
all round them shone dazzlingly in the sunshine. A high gray wall
bounded the easterly side; on the west the road was bordered by a low
quickset hedge that allowed a view of a wide valley through which the
river, having gathered once more its vagrant streams and brooks, flowed
in prodigal curves of silver as far as the eye could follow. The hills
that rose to right and left of the valley in bald curves were at this
season colorless beside the vivider green of the water-meadows at their
base, which was generally indeterminate on account of plantations whence
at long intervals the smoke of hidden mills and cottages ascended. When
the road had traversed the width of the valley, it trifurcated. One
branch followed westward the gentle undulations of the valley; a second
ran straight up the hill, disappearing over a stark sky-line almost
marine in its hint of space beyond. The main branch climbed the hill
diagonally to the right and conveyed a sense of adventure with a
milestone which said fifty miles to an undecipherable town.

Michael and Guy took this widest road for a while, but they soon paused
by a gate to look back at Wychford. The sun shone high, and the beams
slanting transversely through the smoke of the chimneys in tier upon
tier gave the clustered gray roofs a superficial translucence like that
of an uncut gem. The little town built against the hill nowhere
straggled, and in its fortified economy and simplicity of line it might
have been cut on wood by a mediaeval engraver. Higher up along the hill's
ridge went rocketing east and west the windswept highway from Oxford
over the wold to Gloucestershire. They traced its course by the
telegraph-poles whose inclinations had so long been governed by t