8o A KENTISH PARISH 



moss-grown tiles and blackened timber, that still 

 answers its purpose somehow, although it has long 

 been half tumbling to pieces For generations it has 

 been the favourite haunt of the vociferous colony of 

 night-owls that you hear hooting from the depths of 

 the woods after nightfall. The martins have made 

 their nests under the eaves by the dozen, and there are 

 whole flying squadrons of bats hooked up by the claws 

 among the cobwebs under its rafters. The number of 

 these scattered barns tends to multiply the field-paths, 

 by which any one with the carte du pays in his head 

 may go straight as the crow flies in almost any direc- 

 tion. Such of these as lead from the hamlets to the 

 church, and in the direction of the little town, are 

 broad and well beaten, beyond possibility of mistaking. 

 But there are many that seem to have been neglected 

 or almost deserted in the course of time, although there 

 must still be some traffic to keep up the right of 

 way, or else the occupiers of the cultivated land they 

 traverse have never thought it worth while to close 

 them. You see a gap in the roots of an untrimmed 

 hedge a gap which, on closer inspection, proves to 

 be fenced with a stile. And if you care to force your 

 way, with the certainty of having your cheeks scarred 

 by the bramble sprays, you find yourself all abroad on 

 the other side. You are in a field of waving clover, 

 or in a fallow unmarked by any traces of a foot-track. 

 But if you take your bearings by the nearest farm 

 buildings you are pretty sure to find a corresponding 

 break in the bushy enclosure opposite. Seldom used 



