She followed one of the small paths round the hill and found herself in a place so wonderful, so unexpected, that she caught back her breath and let it out again in low exclamations of delight. She was now on the other side of the hill and, though she did not know it, she was on the site of an ancient camp. The hill was flat-topped; there were still signs of the ramparts, but it was not on these she gazed. Far below her was the river, flowing sluggishly in a deep ravine, formed on her right hand and as far as she could see by high grey cliffs. These for the most part were bare and sheer, but they gave way now and then to a gentler slope with a rich burden of trees, while, on the other side of the river, it was the rocks that seemed to encroach on the trees, for the wall of the gorge, almost to the water’s edge, was thick with woods. Here and there, on either cliff, a sudden red splash of rock showed like an unhealed wound, amid the healthier grey. And all around her there seemed to be limitless sky, huge fluffy clouds and gulls as white.
At the edge of the cliff where she stood, gorse bushes bloomed and, looking to the left, she saw the slender line of a bridge swung high across the abyss. Beyond it the cliffs lessened into banks, then into meadows studded with big elms and, on the city side, there were houses red and grey, as though the rocks had simply changed their shapes. The houses were clustered close to the water, they rose in terraces and trees mingled with their chimneys. Below there were intricate waterways, little bridges, warehouses and ships and, high up, the fairy bridge, delicate and poised, was like a barrier between that place of business and activity and this, where Henrietta stood with the trees, the cliffs, the swooping gulls. It was low tide and the river was bordered by banks of mud, grey too, yet opalescent. It almost reflected the startling white of the gulls’ wings and, as she looked at it, she saw that its colour was made up of many; there was pink in it and blue and, as a big cloud passed over the sun, it became subtly purple; it was a palette of subdued and tender shades.
Henrietta heaved a sigh. This was too much. She could look at it but she could not see it all. Yet this marvellous place belonged to her, and she knew now whence had come the glamour in the stories her father had told her when she was a child. It had come from here, where an aged city had tried to conquer the country and had failed, for the spirit of woods and open spaces, of water and trees and wind, survived among the very roofs. The conventions of the centuries, the convention of puritanism, of worldliness, of impiety, of materialism and of charity had all assailed and all fallen back before the strength of the apparently peaceful country in which the city stood. The air was soft with a peculiar, undermining softness; it carried with it a smell of flowers and fruit and earth, and if all the many miles on the farther side of the bridge should be ravished by men’s hands, covered with buildings and strewn with the ugly luxuries they thought they needed, the spirit would remain in the tainted air and the imprisoned earth. It would whisper at night at the windows, it would smile invisibly under the sun, it would steal into men’s minds and work its will upon them. And already Henrietta felt its power. She was in a new world, dull but magical, torpid yet alert.