An Old Warren. 219 



two rows of tall elms some hundreds of yards 

 apart the scattered hawthorn bushes and solitary 

 trees, groups of cattle in the shade, and sheep graz- 

 ing by the far-away hedge, give the aspect of a 

 wilder park, the more pleasant because of its wild- 

 ness. 



Near about the centre, where the land is most level, 

 an unexpected slope goes down into a cuplike de- 

 pression. This green crater may perhaps have been 

 formed by digging for sand so long ago that the 

 turf has since grown over smoothly. Standing at the 

 bottom the sides conceal all but the sky over head. 

 Some few dead leaves of last year, not yet decaj^ed 

 though bleached and brittle, lie here at rest from the 

 winds that swept them over the plain. Silky balls of 

 thistledown come irresolutely rolling over the edge, 

 now this way now that : some rise and float across, 

 some follow the surface and cling awhile to the ben- 

 nets in the hollow. Pale blue harebells, drooping 

 from their slender stems here and there, meditate 

 with bowed heads, as if full of tender recollections. 



Now, on hands and knees (the turf is dry and soft) , 

 creep up one side of the bowl-like hollow, where the 

 thistles make a parapet on the edge, and from behind 

 it look out upon the ground all broken up into low 

 humps, some covered with nettles, others plainly 

 heaps of sand. It is the sight of an immense rab- 

 bit-burrow, the relic of an old warren which once 

 occupied half the field. The nettle-covered heaps 

 mark old excavations ; where the sand shows, there 

 the miners have been recently at work. At the 

 sound of approaching footsteps those inhabitants that 

 had been abroad hastily rushed into their caves, but 



