RURAL SCENES. 89 



in thick but wild and wilsome verdure, and pushing out of 

 this, and stretching over us, often the branches mingling over 

 our heads and shutting out the bright blue sky clear beyond 

 the next turn, so we seemed walking in a bower, thick old 

 apple and pear trees with pliant twigs of hazel-wood, and 

 occasionally the strong arms of great bending elms. Now 

 and then a break in the hedge-row, and, a little back, a low, 

 thick-thatched cottage with many bends in the ridge-pole, and 

 little windows, and thick walls ; a cat asleep in the door, 

 and pigs and chickens before it, and, lying on the ground, -in 

 the dust of the lane, playing with a puppy, two or three 

 flaxen-haired, blue-eyed children ; a little further, a drowsy 

 old she-ass standing in the shade, and a mouse-coloured foal, as 

 little as a lamb, but with a great head and large, plaintive 

 dark eyes, and a most confiding, meek, and touching expres 

 sion of infantile, embryo intellect. 



Now and then, too, the hedge gives way to the wall of a 

 paddock or stack-yard, and beyond it are a number of old and 

 often dilapidated hovels, sheds, and stables, clustering without 

 any appearance of arrangement about a low farm-house with 

 big chimneys, wide windows, and a little porch half hidden 

 under roses, jessamine, and honeysuckle. 



And sometimes at these a big dog would bay at us, and, a 

 woman coming to the door, our friend would turn up and ask, 

 &quot; How is the master and the little ones ]&quot; and in return be 

 asked, &quot; How is good mistress and young master ?&quot; And then 

 we would be presented as strangers, that had come over the 

 sea to view this goodly land, and would be asked, in pitying 

 tones, about famine, and fever, and potatoes, the farm-wife, 

 although she had an exceedingly sweet speech, apparently con 

 fusing New York with Connaught or Munster. 



Again, broad fields, and stout horses, and busy labourers, 

 and straight plough-furrows, or the bright metallic green of 



