IN LITERATURE 5 



you of the labyrinths of long-drawn aisles in the most 

 superb of Gothic cathedrals. Every here and there 

 you come out on some sequestered valley with fields 

 that are waving with the hay-crops and the ripening 

 grain, sloping down to the sides of some murmuring 

 brook that babbles along between its banks in a series 

 of rushes and cascades. But you may walk onwards 

 day after day, and seldom raise a hare or flush a covey. 

 Game there must be, no doubt, for you find it 

 frequently figuring on the dinner-table. But it has 

 a perverse knack of keeping out of your way, and 

 cannot in any case be very abundant. The roes and 

 the foxes that lurk in the recesses of the woods either 

 see or scent you as you approach through the open ; 

 for naturally, in the absence of undergrowth, they get 

 preternaturally shy and suspicious. 



As for human habitations, the country is fairly 

 populous, and human habitations there are ; but there 

 is scarcely a trace of the existence of a squirearchy or 

 of a comfortable class of gentleman farmers. Here and 

 there in the depths of the forest you come on the pic- 

 turesque huts of the charcoal-burners or woodmen ; 

 now and again you stumble out upon a clearing with 

 some sylvan lodge, the dwelling of the forester, whose 

 duty is to keep an eye on them, and whom you have 

 possibly come across in the course of the morning with 

 a dachshund or two at his heels. Generally, however, 

 the people are huddled together, and each of the greater 

 valleys has its village. Nothing can be more quaint 

 than the many-gabled houses with their rustic wood- 



