CHAPTER TI. 



THE WALK CONTINUED. 



In our search for any intensive cultivation in 

 a countryside given over entirely to extensive 

 cultivation and barren sport, we have wan- 

 dered off the track of Cobbett when we enter 

 Clarendon Park. So we will now retrace his 

 bridle way along the fertile vale of the Avon 

 and mark the difference there, where villages 

 with roofs of thatch nestle close together amid 

 the fat meadows watered by the silvery Avon. 

 To start where Cobbett started when he 

 went out to slay " that monster ^lalthus," you 

 must cut across that treeless, hedgeless range 

 of " real Bown country," as he called it, which 

 makes the finest coursing ground in all 

 England, taking Ludgershall and Everley on 

 your way, and make for the little hamlet of 

 Wootton Rivers, v/here rises the AViltshire 



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