Between the Larch-woods
and the Weir
Between the Larch-woods and the Weir
Between
the Larch-woods
and the Weir
the Larch-woods
and the Weir
By
NEW YORK
Frederick A. Stokes Company
Publishers
Dedicated to
the Memory
of Arthur,
Bertie, and
Wilfrid—my
Brothers
the Memory
of Arthur,
Bertie, and
Wilfrid—my
Brothers
Move along these shades
In gentleness of heart; . . .
. . . for there is a spirit in the woods.
I
Preamble
On one of the high hills that border the riverWye, there stands an old cottage, perched on anoutstanding bluff, with apparently no way ofapproach save by airship.
Looking up at it from the river bank by theweir (the self-same weir beside which Wordsworthsat when he wrote his famous “Lines”),you can only glimpse the chimneys and anglesof the roof, so buried is the house in the treesthat clothe the hill-slopes to a height of nearlynine hundred feet.
The cottage is not quite at the top of thehill; behind it rise still more woods, makingthe steeps in early spring a mist of purple andbrown and soft grey bursting buds, followed bypale shimmering green, with frequent splashesof white when the hundreds of wild cherriesbreak into bloom.
A darker green sweeps over all with theoncoming of summer, which in turn becomescrimson, lemon, rust-gold, bronze-green, copperand orange in the autumn, where coppices ofbirch and oak, ash and beech, wild cherry, crabapple, yew and hazel intermingle with the stately[8]ranks of the larch-woods that revel in theheights, and give the hills a jagged edge againstthe sky.
The casual tourist who merely “does” theWye Valley—which invariably means scorchingalong the one good road the district possesses,skirting the foot of the hills—has a clever knackof entirely missing, as a rule, the larch-woods andthe weir. Obviously, when any self-respectingmotorist finds himself on a fine road where hecan trundle along at thirty miles an hour (at theleast), with seldom any official let or hindrance,he naturally shows his friends what his car cando! And in such circumstances it is necessaryto keep the eyes glued to the half-mile straightahead. Even though the natives are too virtuousto need the upkeep of many policemen, straycattle and slow-dragging timber-wain
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