66 A KENTISH PARISH 



the most resolute bird-nesters at defiance ; and when 

 you are out with the gun you must make many a 

 tedious detour, since there is no struggling through 

 them save at the regular " gaps." And through these 

 labyrinths of savage shrubbery the narrow lanes wind 

 their tortuous courses, seldom seeming to trespass on 

 the continuity of a hedge, and never turning aside from 

 the steep of a hill. Now you are ascending a sharp, 

 gravelly incline that makes deadly wear and tear of 

 horse-flesh ; now you are descending the opposite slope, 

 where the most reckless expenditure of drags and sabots 

 scarcely suffices to lock the waggon-wheels. Every 

 here and there from some crest, if you are in luck, you 

 have a peep of some enchanting prospect from under 

 the boughs of the oaks or the beeches. Now on the 

 hill the drooping branches of the trees are brushing the 

 waggon-tilt on either side ; and then again in the flat 

 farm-land in the bottom, hedges and ditches run back 

 into the fields, leaving broad margins of rich green 

 sward, where caravans of gipsies picket their cattle in 

 plenty. 



Then as to the timber. Oakenhurst is bounded on 

 the north by a bare ridge of chalk hills that ought to 

 be downs, but which, for the most part are cultivated. 

 It is to be hoped that the crops repay the farmers, but 

 it is certain that the oat-fields in their rankest luxuriance 

 give but scanty covert to the coveys of partridges ; 

 while the turnips are a trifle smaller than Portugal 

 onions, and the mangel are as moderate-sized garden 

 carrots. In the shelter of these chalk hills is a wooded 



