Tring was reached, and then Tring railway-station; for the two are
not very near, the good people of Tring having held the railway, of
old days, in extreme apprehension, lest some day it should break
loose in the town and work mischief. I had a last walk, among
russet beeches as usual, and the air filled, as usual, with the
carolling of larks; I heard shots fired in the distance, and saw,
as a new sign of the fulfilled autumn, two horsemen exercising a
pack of fox-hounds. And then the train came and carried me back to
London.
CHAPTER IV--A WINTER'S WALK IN CARRICK AND GALLOWAY--A FRAGMENT--
1876
At the famous bridge of Doon, Kyle, the central district of the
shire of Ayr, marches with Carrick, the most southerly. On the
Carrick side of the river rises a hill of somewhat gentle
conformation, cleft with shallow dells, and sown here and there
with farms and tufts of wood. Inland, it loses itself, joining, I
suppose, the great herd of similar hills that occupies the centre
of the Lowlands. Towards the sea it swells out the coast-line into
a protuberance, like a bay-window in a plan, and is fortified
against the surf behind bold crags. This hill is known as the
Brown Hill of Carrick, or, more shortly, Brown Carrick.
It had snowed overnight. The fields were all sheeted up; they were
tucked in among the snow, and their shape was modelled through the
pliant counterpane, like children tucked in by a fond mother.
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