Identifier: cu31924028008229 (find matches)
Title: The Old Road
Year: 1904 (1900s)
Authors: Belloc, Hilaire, 1870-1953 Hyde, William Henry, 1858-1925, illus
Subjects: Roads
Publisher: London, A. Constable
Contributing Library: Cornell University Library
Digitizing Sponsor: MSN

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; our clear streams run over it; the shapes and curves ittakes and the kind of close rough grass it bears (an especialgrass for sheep), are the cloak of our counties ; its lonelybreadths delight us when the white clouds and the flocks moveover them together; where the waves break it into clifis, theyare the characteristic of our shores, and through its thin coatof whitish mould go the thirsty roots of our three trees—thebeech, the holly, and the yew. For the clay and the sandmight be deserted or flooded and the South Country wouldstill remain, but if the Chalk Hills were taken away we mightas well be the Midlands. These pits which uncover the chalk bare for us show us ourprincipal treasure and the core of our lives, and show it us ingrand fagades, steep down, taking the place of crags andbringing into our rounded land something of the stern andthe abrupt. Every one brought up among the chalk pitsremembers them more vividly than any other thing about hisno •a J3 CO . .t! •n a 3 V
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OF THE KOAD home, and when he returns from some exile he catches thefeeling of his boyhood as he sees them far off upon the hills. Therefore I would make it a test for every man who boastedof the south country, Surrey men (if there are any left), andHampshire men, and men of Kent (for they must be countedin): I would make it a test to distinguish whether they werejust rich nobodies playing the native or true men, to see if theycould remember the pits. For my part I could draw you everyone in my country-side even now. Duncton, where the littlehut is, surrounded by deep woods, Amberley, Houghton, whichI have climbed with a Spaniard, and where twice the houndshave gone over and have been killed, Mr. Potters pit, downwhich we hunted a critic once, the pit below Whiteways,Bury Pit, and Burpham, and all the older smaller diggings,going back to the beginning, and abandoned now to ivy and totrees. I know them and I love them all. The chalk gives aparticular savour to the air, and I have found

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