OWLS IN A VILLAGE 175 



country appears a veritable waste ; the idle hedges 

 enclosing vacant fields, the ancient scattered trees, 

 the absence of life, the noonday quiet, where the 

 silence is only broken at intervvals by some distant 

 bird voice, strangely impress the mind as by a vision 

 of a time to come and of an England dispeopled. It 

 is restful ; there is a melancholy charm in it similar 

 to that of a nature untouched by man, although not 

 so strong. Here, everywhere are visible the marks 

 of human toil and ownership — the wave-like, parallel 

 ridges in the fields, now mantled with grass, and the 

 hedges that cut up the surface of the earth into in- 

 numerable segments of various shapes and sizes. It 

 is not wild, but there is something in it of the desolaton 

 that accompanies wildness — a promise soon to be 

 fulfilled, now that grass and herbage will have freedom 

 to grow, and the hedges that have been trimmed for 

 a thousand years will no longer be restrained from 

 spreading. 



In this district the farmhouses and cottages are 

 not scattered over the country. The farm-buildings, 

 as a rule, form part of the village ; the villages are 

 small and mostly hidden from sight among embower- 

 ing trees or in a coombe. From the high ground in 

 some places it is possible to gaze over many miles of 

 surrounding country and not see a human habitation ; 



