14 AWAKENING OF ENGLAND. 



bored with the pretty old-fashioned names of 

 "Yew Cottage" or "Rose Cottage." No 

 doubt, too, every employee would be duly 

 numbered in the books of the estate. 



Though this was the highroad from Hunger- 

 ford to Andover, innumerable rabbits crossed 

 and reerossed it in the broad daylight, and the 

 feeling of isolation grew upon you until you 

 began to wonder if you were really in over- 

 populated England. No hedges flank the 

 road, nor ditches either, for on either side is a 

 broad stretch of green grass divided by this 

 white ribbon of a road, and beyond the grass, 

 tier upon tier, rise oaks and beeches. It 

 might have been a valley in some distant 

 uninhabited country, and the tropical flaming 

 patches of herb willow served but to heighten 

 the illusion. I lay down upon the grass by 

 the roadside to rest my back from the Ruck- 

 sack and to drink in the beauty of the valley. 

 Save for the flapping of the wings of the 

 pigeons and the poignant cry of the plover, 

 not a sound was to be heard. . . . When I 

 rose, green sward and roadway were speckled 

 with the white tufts of the bobbing tails of 

 countless rabbits, and as I walked forward 

 companies of them kept retreating like an 



