The Woodlanders

The rambler who, for old association or other reasons, should trace the forsaken coach-roadrunning almost in a meridional line from Bristol to the south shore of England, would find himselfduring the latter half of his journey in the vicinity of some extensive woodlands, interspersed withapple-orchards.

Here the trees, timber or fruit-bearing, as the case may be, make the wayside hedgesragged by their drip and shade, stretching over the road with easeful horizontality, as if they foundthe unsubstantial air an adequate support for their limbs.

At one place, where a hill is crossed, thelargest of the woods shows itself bisected by the high-way, as the head of thick hair is bisected bythe white line of its parting.

The spot is lonely.The physiognomy of a deserted highway expresses solitude to a degree that is not reached bymere dales or downs, and bespeaks a tomb-like stillness more emphatic than that of glades andpools.

The contrast of what is with what might be probably accounts for this.

To step, for instance,at the place under notice, from the hedge of the plantation into the adjoining pale thoroughfare, andpause amid its emptiness for a moment, was to exchange by the act of a single stride the simpleabsence of human companionship for an incubus of the forlorn.At this spot, on the lowering evening of a by-gone winter's day, there stood a man who hadentered upon the scene much in the aforesaid manner.

Alighting into the road from a stile hard by,he, though by no means a "chosen vessel" for impressions, was temporarily influenced by some suchfeeling of being suddenly more alone than before he had emerged upon the highway.It could be seen by a glance at his rather finical style of dress that he did not belong to thecountry proper; and from his air, after a while, that though there might be a sombre beauty in thescenery, music in the breeze, and a wan procession of coaching ghosts in the sentiment of this oldturnpike-road, he was mainly puzzled about the way.

The dead men's work that had been expendedin climbing that hill, the blistered soles that had trodden it, and the tears that had wetted it, were nothis concern; for fate had given him no time for any but practical things.He looked north and south, and mechanically prodded the ground with his walking-stick.

Acloser glance at his face corroborated the testimony of his clothes.

It was self-complacent, yet therewas small apparent ground for such complacence.

Nothing irradiated it; to the eye of the magician incharacter, if not to the ordinary observer, the expression enthroned there was absolute submissionto and belief in a little assortment of forms and habitudes.