The country inland from Martin’s Point is rather barren. But, like all the non-industrialized parts of England it has a character, very shy like a little silvery-grey old lady, which acts gently but in the end rather strongly on the mind. It was the edge of one of the long chalk downs of England, with salt marshes to left and right, and fertile clay land far behind—too far for George to reach even on a bicycle. In detail it seemed colourless and commonplace. From the crest of one of the high ridges, it had a kind of silvery-grey, very old quality, with its great bare treeless fields making faint chequer-patterns on the long gentle slopes, with always a fringe of silvery-grey sea in the far distance. The chalk was ridged in long parallels, like the swell of some gigantic ocean arrested in rock. The ridges became more abrupt and violent near the coast, and ended in a long irregular wall of silvery-grey chalk, poised like a huge wave of rock-foam forever motionless and forever silent, while forever at its base lapped the petty waves of the mobile and whispering sea. The sheep-and-wind-nipped turf of the downs grew dwarf bee-orchis, blue-purple bugloss, tall ragged knapweed and frail hare-bells. In the valleys were tall thistles and fox-gloves. Certain nooks were curiously rich with wildflowers mixed with deep rich-red clover and marguerite-daisies. In the summer these little flowery patches—so precious and conspicuous in the surrounding barrenness—were a flicker of butterfly wings—the creamy Marbled Whites, electric blue of the Chakhill Blue, sky-blue of the Common and Holly Blue, rich tawny of the Fritilliaries, metallic gleam of the Coppers, cool drab of the Meadow Browns. The Peacock, the Red Admiral, the Painted Lady, the Tortoiseshell wheeled over the nettles and thistles, poised on the flowers, fanning their rich mottled wings. In a certain field in August you could find Clouded Yellows rapidly moving in little curves and irregular dashes of flight over swaying red-purple clover, which seemed to drift like a sea as the wind ran over it.