rtable inn in
the centre of Ditchling village. Thence to the Down itself the road is
straight and the walk no longer than is always welcome after riding.

After leaving the cottages and gardens, the road soon becomes enclosed
with hedges and trees, a mere country lane; and how pleasant are the
trees after the bare shore and barren sea! The hand of autumn has
browned the oaks, and has passed over the hedge, reddening the haws. The
north wind rustles the dry hollow stalks of plants upon the mound, and
there is a sense of hardihood in the touch of its breath.

The light is brown, for a vapour conceals the sun--it is not like a
cloud, for it has no end or outline, and it is high above where the
summer blue was lately. Or is it the buff leaves, the grey stalks, the
dun grasses, the ripe fruit, the mist which hides the distance that
makes the day so brown? But the ditches below are yet green with
brooklime and rushes. By a gateway stands a tall campanula or
bell-flower, two feet high or nearly, with great bells of blue.

A passing shepherd, without his sheep, but walking with his crook as a
staff, stays and turns a brown face towards me when I ask him the way.
He points with his iron crook at a narrow line which winds up the Down
by some chalk-pits; it is a footpath from the corner of the road. Just
by the corner the hedge is grey with silky flocks of clematis; the
hawthorn is hidden by it. Near by there is a bush, made up of branches
from five different shrubs and plants.

First hazel, from which the yellow leaves are fast dropping; among this
dogwood, with leaves darkening; between these a bramble bearing berries,
some red and some ripe, and yet a pink flower or two left. Thrusting
itself into the tangle, long woody bines of bittersweet hang their
clusters of red berries, and above and over all the hoary clematis
spreads its beard, whitening to meet the winter. These five are all
intermixed and bound up together, flourishing in a mass; nuts and edible
berries, semi-poisonous fruit, flowers, creepers; and hazel, with
markings under its outer bark like a gun-barrel.

This is the last of the plain. Now every step exposes the climber to the
force of the unchecked wind. The harebells swing before it, the bennets
whistle, but the sward springs to the foot, and the heart grows lighter
as the height increases. The ancient hill is alone with the wind. The
broad summit is left to scattered furze and fern cowering under its
shelt