and the fruit on the briars glistens in the sun.  Inside the copse stand innumerable thistles shoulder high, dead and gaunt; and a grey border running round the field at the bottom of the hedge shows where the tall, strong weeds of summer have withered up.  A bird flutters round the topmost boughs of the elm yonder and disappears with a flash of blue—­it is a jay.  Here the grass of the meadow has an undertone of grey; then an arable field succeeds, where six strong horses are drawing the heavy drill, and great bags of the precious seed are lying on the furrows.

Another meadow, where note a broken bough of elder, the leaves on which have turned black, while still on its living branches they are green, and then a clump of beeches.  The trunks are full of knot-holes, after a dead bough has fallen off and the stump has rotted away, the bark curls over the orifice and seemingly heals the wound more smoothly and completely than with other trees.  But the mischief is proceeding all the same, despite that flattering appearance; outwardly the bark looks smooth and healthy, but probe the hole and the rottenness is working inwards.  A sudden gap in the clump attracts the glance, and there—­with one great beech trunk on this side and another on that—­is a view opening down on the distant valley far below.  The wood beneath looks dwarfed, and the uneven tops of the trees, some green, some tinted, are apparently so close together as to hide aught else, and the shadows of the clouds move over it as over a sea.  A haze upon the horizon brings plain and sky together there; on one side, in the far distance a huge block, a rude vastness stands out dusky and dimly defined—­it is a spur of the rolling hills.

Out in the plain, many a mile away, the sharp, needle-like point of a steeple rises white above the trees, which there shade and mingle into a dark mass—­so brilliantly white as to seem hardly real.  Sweeping the view round, there is a strange and total absence of houses or signs of habitation, other than the steeple, and now that, too, is gone.  It has utterly vanished—­where, but a few moments before it glowed with whiteness, is absolutely nothing.  The disappearance is almost weird in the broad daylight, as if solid stone could sink into the earth.  Searching for it suddenly a village appears some way on the right—­the white walls stand out bright and clear, one of the houses is evidently of large size, and placed on a slight elevation is a prominent object.  But as we look it fades, grows blurred and indistinct, and in another moment is gone.  The whole village has vanished—­in its place is nothing; so swift is the change that the mind scarcely credits the senses.