To The Right Is The Gleaming Sea, And The Distant
Sound Of The Surge Comes Up To The Wood.
The headland and its three
curves boldly project into the sunlit waters; from its foot many a
gallant stag hard pressed by the hounds has swum out into the track of
passing vessels.
Selworthy Woods were still in the afternoon heat; except
for the occasional rustle of a rabbit or of a pheasant, there was no
evidence of life; the sound of the sea was faint and soon lost among the
ferns. Slowly, very slowly, great Dunkery grew less hard of aspect,
shadows drew along at the base, while again the declining sun from time
to time sent his beams into valleys till now dark. The thatched house at
Holnicote by the foot of Selworthy much interested me; it is one of the
last of thatched houses inhabited by a gentleman and landed proprietor.
Sir Thomas Acland, who resides here, is a very large owner. Thatch
prevails on his estates; thatched cottages, thatched farmhouses, and his
thatched mansion. In the coolness of the evening the birds began to sing
and squirrels played across the lawn in front of Holnicote House.
Humble-bees hummed in the grass and visited the flowers of the holly
bushes. Thrushes sang, and chaffinches, and, sweetest of all, if simplest
in notes, the greenfinches talked and courted in the trees. Two cuckoos
called in different directions, wood-pigeons raised their voices in
Selworthy Wood, and rooks went over cawing in their deliberate way.
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