168 BENEDICITE 



having read the inscription, gave judgement: " Law 

 is law," said he, "good or bad; no man should 

 break the law of the land." 



" Of the 'landed,' " I suggested. " When I gallop 

 my hunter through this close, breaking down the 

 briars and brambles that have cost so much time 

 and human industry to cultivate, I'll pay the bill." 



"As sure as you go in," he cautioned, "the 

 pigeons will rise ' flip-flap ' from the pines, giving 

 warning far and near ; and a pretty figure you'll cut 

 if caught." 



"And when you come out safely," I told him; 

 "you'll be delighted to have been in, and will make 

 up your legal conscience into a neat little packet, 

 and put it in your waistcoat pocket until it is wanted 

 again." 



"Sir! If it were not for the close personal 

 relationship subsisting between us, I should call 

 you a . ..." 



" You're a humbug !" 



" And you're a .... But it's Sunday (as far 

 as 150 West of Greenwich, at any rate)." 



We entered the wood together, not from any 

 unanimity of sentiment, but because we are so 

 constituted that one must for ever be upon the 

 heels of the other. 



Is there anything just like a wood, like that first 

 shudder of the mind when one has crept in, and 

 stands awhile to look round and listen ? Here is 

 light, but not the light of the open. Filtered 

 through windows of living green, the impartial glare 

 of day has gone out of it. It lies softly on what it 

 touches a lasting twilight, save where some yellow 



