THE LIVING GARMENT 33 



own mischievous life ? It is the pretty spoilt darling 

 of the fields who has run away to hide in the corn, 

 and to peer back, with a roguish smile on its face, 

 at every passer-by. Perhaps the farmer is partly to 

 blame for the fancy, for the bindweed vexes his soul, 

 as it will vex and hinder the reapers by-and-by ; and 

 he abuses it just as if it had a moral sense and ears to 

 hear, and ought to be ashamed of itself. It pleased 

 me to be told by a village maiden that not bindweed, 

 nor convolvulus, but lilylind was the true name of this 

 pretty plant. 



Here one may see the corn reaped with sickles in 

 the ancient way; and better still, the wheat carried 

 from the field in wains drawn by two or three couples 

 of great, long-horned, black oxen. One wonders which 

 of the three following common sights of the Sussex 

 downs carries us further back in time : the cluster of 

 cottages, with church and farm buildings, that form 

 the village nestling in the valley, and, seen from above, 

 appearing as a mere red spot in the prospect; the 

 cloaked shepherd, crook in hand, standing motionless 

 on some vast green slope, his grey, rough-haired sheep- 

 dog resting at his feet ; or the team of coal-black, long- 

 horned oxen drawing the plough or carrying the corn. 



The little rustic village in the deep dene, with its 

 two or three hundred inhabitants, will probably outlast 

 London, or at all events London's greatness ; and the 

 solitary shepherd with his dog at his feet will doubt- 

 less stand watching his flock on the hillside for some 



c 



