A MANOR HOUSE IN DEER LAND. 207 



faint yellow-green are blurred with darker 

 colour like egg marks. Rising up and down 

 in the sunshine, he has wandered hither from 

 the trout-stream. The old tower casts a 

 longer shadow now, as the heat of the June 

 day declines. Many an old engraving is up 

 there, it is said, inaccessible because the 

 place is full of fleeces. The wealth of the 

 land here is in wool, and wool has been so 

 low in price of recent years that fleeces are 

 stored and kept season after season in hope 

 of a rise. 



The way up to the woods is beside the 

 trout-stream ; it is indeed but a streamlet, 

 easy to stride across, yet it is full of trout. 

 Running with a quick tinkle over red stones, 

 the shallow water does not look as if it would 

 float a fish, but they work round the stones 

 and under hollows of the banks. The lads 

 have not forgotten how to poach them ; such 

 knowledge is handed down by tradition, and 



