60 Poplars and Firs. 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE VILLAGE THE WASHPOOL VILLAGE INDUSTRIES 



THE BELFRY JACKDAWS VILLAGE CHRON- 

 ICLES. 



A SHORT distance below the cottagers' 'dipping- 

 place ' just mentioned, the same stream, leaving the 

 deep groove or gully, widens suddenly into a large 

 clear pool, shaded by two tall fir trees and an equally 

 tall poplar. The tops of these trees are nearly level 

 with the plain above the verdant valley in which the 

 stream flows, and, being side by side, the difference 

 in the manner of their growth is strongly contrasted. 

 The branches of the fir gracefully depend, as if 

 weighted downwards by the burden of the heavy deep 

 green fringe they carry a fringe tipped with bullion 

 in the spring, for the young shoots are of so light a 

 green as to shade into a pale yellow. The branches 

 of the poplar, on the contrar} r , point upwards grow- 

 ing nearly vertically ; so that the outline of the tree 

 resembles the tip of an immensely exaggerated artist's 

 brush. This formation is ill adapted for nest-build- 

 ing, as it affords little or no surface to build on, and 

 so the poplar is but seldom used by birds. 



The pool beneath is approached by a broad track 

 it cannot be called road trampled into innumerable 

 small holes by the feet of flocks of sheep, driven down 



