THE WALK CONTINUED. 29 



of a stag on your face must be an uncanny 

 sensation. 



Eventually we made the post-office, which 

 was, I found, at Leigh Hill, one of the 

 quaintest and smallest hamlets I have ever 

 seen. It is on the verge of the forest, entirely 

 enclosed in a palisade, erected, no doubt, to 

 prevent the deer from leaping into the beauti- 

 fully kept garden of the steward, or those of 

 the five thatched cottages which comprise the 

 hamlet. In these five cottages live the post- 

 man, a retired soldier, a widow, a gardener, 

 and one other workman. The red and the 

 fallow deer may be seen any day promenading 

 Leigh Hill's solitary village street, if one may 

 so term the beechen thoroughfare outside the 

 palings. Here, we have a hamlet without a 

 church and without a school, and but for the 

 well-groomed appearance of the steward's 

 la^^^l, one could easily imagine Leigh Hill to 

 be a frontier settlement in the A\^ild West, 

 with palings erected to protect sleeping 

 pioneers against a sudden night attack. 



Dame Gossip must be hard put to it here 

 as the day wears on, for not a soul is visible 

 in the afternoon. If you lift the latch of a 

 gate which lets you inside the palisade, pass 



