almost killing ennui. She would have welcomed even a misfortune.
She had heard that from the summit of the pillar four counties could
be seen. Whatever pleasurable effect was to be derived from looking
into four counties she resolved to enjoy to-day.

The fir-shrouded hill-top was (according to some antiquaries) an old
Roman camp,--if it were not (as others insisted) an old British
castle, or (as the rest swore) an old Saxon field of Witenagemote,--
with remains of an outer and an inner vallum, a winding path leading
up between their overlapping ends by an easy ascent. The spikelets
from the trees formed a soft carpet over the route, and occasionally
a brake of brambles barred the interspaces of the trunks. Soon she
stood immediately at the foot of the column.

It had been built in the Tuscan order of classic architecture, and
was really a tower, being hollow with steps inside. The gloom and
solitude which prevailed round the base were remarkable. The sob of
the environing trees was here expressively manifest; and moved by
the light breeze their thin straight stems rocked in seconds, like
inverted pendulums; while some boughs and twigs rubbed the pillar's
sides, or occasionally clicked in catching each other. Below the
level of their summits the masonry was lichen-stained and mildewed,
for the sun never pierced that moaning cloud of blue-black
vegetation. Pads of moss grew in the joints of the stone-work, and
here and there shade-loving insects had engraved on the mortar
patterns of no human style or meaning; but curious and suggestive.
Above the trees the case was different: the pillar rose into the
sky a bright and cheerful thing, unimpeded, clean, and flushed with
the sunlight.