passing through an opening in the hedge, to strike across an
undulating down, while the road wound round to the left. For
a few moments Somerset doubted and stood still. The wire sang
on overhead with dying falls and melodious rises that invited
him to follow; while above the wire rode the stars in their
courses, the low nocturn of the former seeming to be the
voices of those stars,

'Still quiring to the young-eyed cherubim.'

Recalling himself from these reflections Somerset decided to
follow the lead of the wire. It was not the first time during
his present tour that he had found his way at night by the
help of these musical threads which the post-office
authorities had erected all over the country for quite another
purpose than to guide belated travellers. Plunging with it
across the down he came to a hedgeless road that entered a
park or chase, which flourished in all its original wildness.
Tufts of rushes and brakes of fern rose from the hollows, and
the road was in places half overgrown with green, as if it had
not been tended for many years; so much so that, where shaded
by trees, he found some difficulty in keeping it. Though he
had noticed the remains of a deer-fence further back no deer
were visible, and it was scarcely possible that there should
be any in the existing state of things: but rabbits were
multitudinous, every hillock being dotted with their seated
figures till Somerset approached and sent them limping into
their burrows. The road next wound round a clump of underwood
beside which lay heaps of faggots for burning, and then there
appeared against the sky the walls and towers of a castle,