IN SUMMER FIELDS. 25 



III. 



IN SUMMER FIELDS. 



GRIP and I have come out for a morning 

 stroll among the close-cropped pastures be- 

 side the beck, in the very centre of our green 

 little dingle. Here I can sit, as is my wont, 

 on a dry knoll, and watch the birds, beasts, 

 insects, and herbs of the field, while Grip 

 scours the place in every direction, intent, no 

 doubt, upon those more practical objects 

 mostly rats, I fancy which possess a con- 

 genial interest for the canine intelligence. 

 From my coign of vantage on the knoll I 

 can take care that he inflicts no grievous 

 bodily injury upon the sheep, and that he 

 receives none from the quick-tempered cow 

 with the brass-knobbed horns. For a kind 

 of ancestral feud seems to smoulder for ever 



