, standing
apart on a little grass-grown monticule, backed by a row of elms, which
amid their dark foliage showed here and there a single bough of
verdigris-green or lemon-yellow--first harbingers of autumn. Into the
open now, small rough fields dotted with thorn bushes and bramble-brakes
on the one side; and on the other the shining waters of the Haven.
Through the hamlet of Lampit, the rear of whose dilapidated sheds and
dwellings abut on reed-beds and stretches of unsightly slime and ooze. A
desolate spot, bleak and wind-swept in winter, and even under blue skies,
as to-day basking in sunshine, degraded by poverty and dirt.

Some half-mile further is Horny Cross where, as the name indicates, four
roads meet. That from Deadham to the edge of the forest runs north; the
other, from Beaupres-on-Sea to Marychurch, Stourmouth and Barryport, due
west. Damaris, having a fancy to keep the coast-line out of sight, chose
the former, following the valley of the Arne, between great flat meadows
where herds of dairy cows, of red Devons and black Welsh runts, feed in
the rich deep grass. In one place a curve of the river brings it, for
three hundred yards or more, close under the hanging woods, only the
width of the roadway between the broad stream and living wall of trees.
Here transparent bluish shadow haunted the undergrowth, and the air grew
delicately chill, charged with the scent of fern, of moist earth, leaf
mould, and moss.

Such traffic as held the road was leisurely, native to the scene and
therefore pleasing to the sight.--For the age of self-moving machines on
land had barely dawned yet; while the sky was still wholly inviolate.--A
white tilted miller's wagon, a brewer's dray, each drawn by well-favoured
teams with jingling bells and brass-mounted harness, rumbling farm carts,
a gypsy van painted in crude yellow, blue, and red and its accompanying
rabble of children, donkeys and dogs, a farmer's high-hung, curtseying
gig, were in turn met or passed. For the black horse, Damaris driving it,
gave place to none, covering the mounting tale of miles handsomely at an
even, swinging trot.

At Lady's Oak, a noble tree marking some ancient forest boundary and
consequently spared when the needs of the British Navy, during the French
wars of the early years of the century, condemned so many of its fellows
to the axe--the flattened burnished dome of which glinted back the
sunlight above a maze of spreading branches and massive po