HA RD WICKE'S SCIENCE- G SSIF. 



153 



View the Second. 



The Weald of to-day is rapidly getting prosaic : 

 the iron horse and the jerry builder are penetrating 

 into its depths, the primroses and ferns are fast 

 vanishing from its hedgerows, the traction engine is 

 replacing the labouring team, hedgerows themselves 

 are giving way to iron fences, barbed as often as not, 

 copses are being "grubbed," wayside trees cut down, 

 strips of turf quietly absorbed into the nearest field, 

 thrashing and ploughing, and miUing done by steam, 

 instead of by homely and slower methods, the smock- 

 frock and the village curtsey are things of the past 

 along the main roads — or at least wherever the rail has 

 crossed them. It is worth while, therefore, to leave 

 the land of transition, and see what remains of the 

 old ways and the old places. 



Anyone who visits the county town on a market- 

 day will see drawn up in lines in the broad High 

 Street carriers' vans and omnibuses of all sizes and 

 degrees of gentility. In the course of the afternoon 

 these will be labouring out of the town, laden with 

 marketing folk and their baggage, and with many a 

 parcel to be dropped at wayside inn or cottage. 



Suppose we take an outside seat on one of these 

 bound some fifteen miles or more into the heart of 

 the Weald, where Tenterden, Biddenden, Hawkhurst, 

 and all the other dens and hursts remind one of its 

 former forests and bosky dells. 



Slowly, slowly the pair of horses — hardly a pair — 

 toil up the long ascent to the top of the limestone 

 ridge. We travel south by east, and the keen north- 

 east wind cuts across the fields, now faintly green 

 with springing wheat, and raises clouds of dust, till 

 the hedges are whitened as in July, though they are 

 barely green enough for March. 



The broad, flat-topped hill is crossed, the road 

 winds down the steeper side, and we are soon on the 

 ievel. We have passed one village well placed on 

 the slope and grouped round its pretty church, whose 

 stone spire is a land-mark for many miles. Our 

 conveyance has stopped to refresh " man and beast " 

 at a low-browed, timber-fronted inn ; many a greeting 

 has been exchanged with passers-by, and now we set 

 off with quicker pace to cross the flat valley, through 

 which the railway runs straight as an arrow from 

 Tonbridge to Ashford, Sycamores and horse- 

 chestnuts are just budding, meadows are getting "a 

 bite " on them for the numerous lambkins, and here 

 and there starry anemones or celandines grace shaw or 

 bank. In cottage-gardens the " lent lilies"— all out 

 of date — are nodding in the breeze ; the characteristic 

 cottages, steep in front and sloping low behind, like 

 the hills, show budding pear and plum-trees ; over a 

 wayside-pond are the first swallows skimming ; and 

 our onward movement is impeded here and there by 

 those of sheep and cattle from a country-market. 

 One frightened little calf slips between our horses. 



*' Three abreast," jocularly remarks the driver ; but 

 he pulls up in time to save it a blow or scratch. All 

 this is commonplace enough ; but the level fields, the 

 winding road, the luxuriant hedgerows, the leisurely 

 movements of everybody give a sense of peace and 

 rest not always easy to find nowadays. 



We have crossed the railway, exchanged inside 

 passengers and parcels, and off we go again, due 

 south now, leaving the valley behind, and mounting 

 one after another the sandstone slopes which lead 

 gently up to the South Downs. 



Corn-fields, hop-gardens, and •' oast-houses," grow 

 fewer, meadows and woods and heather-covered 

 banks more numerous, till at last a tall windmill, a 

 solid, square church-tower, and many brown- tiled 

 roofs betoken our destination — a little old-fashioned 

 town, innocent of railway, and living its life of 

 gentle measured bustle with a grace that is quite 

 charming. 



Next morning, as we sally forth from our comfort- 

 able quarters at a real old-fashioned inn there is a 

 choice of many roads. We take one which leads 

 southward, and find with delight that though 

 Primrose Day has come and gone, the primroses in 

 hot, damp, wayside copses and hedgerows are still 

 waiting to be picked, that wood-sorrel and 

 moschatel peep from the shady nooks, and milk- 

 maids, violets, and celandines deck the sunny 

 stretches. 



We stop towards noon at a trim farmhouse, all red 

 brick and tile, with ample store of hay still in its 

 rick-yard. The ponderous knocker brings out the 

 farmer himself, in working clothes. He is pleased to 

 tell the way ; but a request for milk brings the good- 

 humoured explanation that it is all in the creaming- 

 pans. " If you'd 'a come in the morning or evening 

 milking-time now — " But the laws of the dairy 

 are those of the Medes and Persians, and we turn 

 thirsty away. We have noted, however, the bees 

 humming in and out of chinks in the weather-tiles. 

 "Yes," he says; " we took out more 'n a hundred- 

 weight o' comb last year." We wonder to ourselves 

 what it must be like to live in such close quarters 

 with the busy little folk. 



Up hill, down dale, over field and stile and five- 

 barred gate we make our way. A labourer taking 

 his nooning under a haystack shows us a cross-cut, 

 and we feel that we have lighted upon a land where 

 nature still has a good deal of her own way. 



For our evening stroll there are the wide woods, 

 where thrush and cuckoo and pheasant greet us with 

 their songs and calls, and where the moor-hen 

 splashes in a lonely pond. 



When the last red sunset-gleams have glorified the 

 fir-trees a clear moon shines over the gabled houses, 

 fewer and fewer footsteps echo on the rough pave- 

 ments, soon they cease ; and at old-fashioned hours 

 the old-fashioned folk seek their (doubtless) well- 

 earned slumbers. 



