To his right, as they drove along, the ground sloped upwards⁠—cornfield after cornfield of young green shoots⁠—to the great main ridge between Dorset and Somerset, along which⁠—only a mile or so away, his companion told him⁠—lay the main highway, famous in West Country history, between Ramsgard and Blacksod, and also between⁠—so Mr. Otter assured him⁠—Salisbury and Exeter!

To his left the Vale of Blackmore beckoned to him out of its meadows⁠—meadows that were full of faint grassy odours which carried a vague taste of river-mud in their savour because of the nearness of the banks of the Lunt. From Shaftesbury, on the north, to the isolated eminence of Melbury Bub, to the south, that valley stretched away, whispering, so it seemed, some inexplicable prophetic greeting to its returned native-born.