“the twilight of such day
As after sunset fadeth in the west.”
But, again, it is hard to improve upon Ireland, who calls it “so rich a
landscape that nature seems not to require the assistance of art, in the
language of modern refinement, either to correct her coarse expression
by removing a hill or docking a tree, or to supply her careless and
tasteless omissions for the purpose of rendering her more completely
picturesque.”
In gathering darkness we dropped down beneath a hill-side partly wooded,
partly set out in young plum orchards, partly turfed, and dotted with
old thorns. Here is Cracombe House, and beyond it lie two
villages--Fladbury on the right and Cropthorne on the left, each with
its own mill. A ford used to join them, but this was superseded by a
bridge to commemorate the Queen’s Jubilee. We did not come to it that
night, for at Fladbury there stands a parsonage, with a lawn sloping
between trees to the river, and on this lawn we heard the voices and
laughter of friends in the dusk. Turning our canoe shore-ward, we hailed
them.