HOP-GARDENS AND FARMING 81 



and overgrown as they may be, these gaps and stiles 

 are invaluable to the sportsman ; otherwise, he would 

 perpetually find himself " pounded " by barriers it is 

 impossible to breach and tedious to turn. 



Whatever be one's opinion of " the good old times," 

 it is certain that our forefathers made wonderful work- 

 manship. It may be nothing out of the way to see 

 farms of great antiquity scarcely showing signs of 

 decay in their solid strength. But here we have 

 cottages scattered all about the parish, to say nothing 

 of many others in the town, which must have been 

 built several hundred years ago more or less, and are 

 still as serviceable and weather-tight as ever. We are 

 happy to say that the walls bulge and the roofs bend ; 

 for their waving beauty-lines, like their time-painted 

 colours, indescribably heighten the artistic effects. And 

 there is something in a picturesque cottage you may 

 even call it a hovel if you will that strikes you more 

 poetically than a hall or a castle. Man has been 

 working humbly with nature in place of vaingloriously 

 challenging her. Like the nest of the chaffinch, woven 

 into the mossy bough, the cottage outlines and tints 

 blend themselves with the surrounding beauties the 

 copse behind overtops the roof-tree, the heathery thatch 

 has been plucked from the heath hard by, and it seems 

 natural that the shoots of the untrimmed roses should 

 struggle in where they can at the broken lattices. 

 Contrast the lot of the inmates with that of the better- 

 paid artisan and the labourer in cities ; but can there 

 be any question which is the more enviable ? The 



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