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 wood itself, but even there occasional leaps are necessary over pools of dark water full of vegetation. These alternate with places where the ground, being higher, yawns with wide cracks crumbling at the edge, the heat causing the clay to split and open. In winter it must be an impassable quagmire; now it is dry and arid. Rising out of this low-lying spot the lane again becomes green and pleasant, and is crossed by another. At the meeting of these four ways some boughs hang over a green bank where I have often rested. In front the lane is barred by a gate, but beyond the gate it still continues its straight course into the wood. To the left the track, crossing at right angles, also proceeds into the wood, but it is so overhung with trees and blocked by bushes that its course after the first hundred yards or so cannot be traced.