recurring November have such an afternoon ride, with that
autumnal glory in the trees. Sometimes, seeing the road
before me carpeted with pure yellow, I said to myself, now I
am coming to elms; but when the road shone red and russet-gold
before me I knew it was overhung by beeches. But the oak is
the common tree in this place, and from every high point on
the road I saw far before me and on either hand the woods and
copses all a tawny yellow gold--the hue of the dying oak leaf.
The tall larches were lemon-yellow, and when growing among
tall pines produced a singular effect. Best of all was it
where beeches grew among the firs, and the low sun on my left
hand shining through the wood gave the coloured translucent
leaves an unimaginable splendour. This was the very effect
which men, inspired by a sacred passion, had sought to
reproduce in their noblest work--the Gothic cathedral and
church, its dim interior lit by many-coloured stained glass.
The only choristers in these natural fanes were the robins and
the small lyrical wren; but on passing through the rustic
village of Wolverton I stopped for a couple of minutes to
listen to the lively strains of a cirl-bunting among some farm
buildings.

Then on to Silchester, its furzy common and scattered village
and the vast ruinous walls, overgrown with ivy, bramble, and
thorn, of ancient Roman Calleva. Inside the walls, at one
spot, a dozen men were still at work in the fading light; they
were just finishing--shovelling earth in to obliterate all
that had been opened out during the year. The old flint
foundations that had been revealed; the houses with porches
and corridors and courtyards and pillared hypocausts; the