The
silence, too, was very profound: there was no good-bye from
crowing cock or hooting owl on this occasion, nor did any
cyclist pass me on the road with a flash of light from his
lamp and a tinkle from his bell. The long straight road on
the high down was a dim grey band visible but a few yards
before me, lying across the intense blackness of the earth.
By day I prefer as a rule walking on the turf, but this road
had a rare and peculiar charm at this time. It was now the
season when the bird's-foot-trefoil, one of the commonest
plants of the downland country, was in its fullest bloom, so
that in many places the green or grey-green turf as far as one
could see on every side was sprinkled and splashed with
orange-yellow. Now this creeping, spreading plant, like most
plants that grow on the close-cropped sheep-walks, whose
safety lies in their power to root themselves and live very
close to the surface, yet must ever strive to lift its flowers
into the unobstructed light and air and to overtop or get away
from its crowding neighbours. On one side of the road, where
the turf had been cut by the spade in a sharp line, the plant
had found a rare opportunity to get space and light and had
thrust out such a multitude of bowering sprays, projecting
them beyond the turf, as to form a close band or rope of
orange-yellow, which divided the white road from the green
turf, and at one spot extended unbroken for upwards of a mile.
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