It is not by any means the best way of seeing
the beauty of the country; you see beauty better by walking, and best
of all by sitting still. But it is a good method in any enterprise
that involves a parody of the military or governmental quality--
anything which needs to know quickly the whole contour of a county
or the rough, relative position of men and towns. On such a journey,
like jagged lightning, I sat from morning till night by the side
of the chauffeur; and we scarcely exchanged a word to the hour.
But by the time the yellow stars came out in the villages and
the white stars in the skies, I think I understood his character;
and I fear he understood mine.
He was a Cheshire man with a sour, patient, and humorous face;
he was modest, though a north countryman, and genial, though an expert.
He spoke (when he spoke at all) with a strong northland accent;
and he evidently was new to the beautiful south country,
as was clear both from his approval and his complaints.
But though he came from the north he was agricultural and not
commercial in origin; he looked at the land rather than the towns,
even if he looked at it with a somewhat more sharp and utilitarian eye.
His first remark for some hours was uttered when we were crossing
the more coarse and desolate heights of Salisbury Plain.
He remarked that he had always thought that Salisbury Plain was a plain.
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