I did not know the circumference of the earth. The
landlord knew it, to be sure - plainly he had made the same
calculation twice and once before, - but he wanted confidence in his
own figures, and from the moment I showed myself so poor a second
seemed to lose all interest in the result.
Wendover (which was my next stage) lies in the same valley with Great
Missenden, but at the foot of it, where the hills trend off on either
hand like a coast-line, and a great hemisphere of plain lies, like a
sea, before one, I went up a chalky road, until I had a good outlook
over the place. The vale, as it opened out into the plain, was
shallow, and a little bare, perhaps, but full of graceful
convolutions. From the level to which I have now attained the fields
were exposed before me like a map, and I could see all that bustle of
autumn field-work which had been hid from me yesterday behind the
hedgerows, or shown to me only for a moment as I followed the
footpath. Wendover lay well down in the midst, with mountains of
foliage about it. The great plain stretched away to the northward,
variegated near at hand with the quaint pattern of the fields, but
growing ever more and more indistinct, until it became a mere hurly-
burly of trees and bright crescents of river, and snatches of
slanting road, and finally melted into the ambiguous cloud-land over
the horizon.
Pages:
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173