Winter Scenery 20 r 



as poets have feigned, but sister influences. Perhaps, 

 indeed, they are one, and only their names are dif- 

 ferent. 



NORTHUMBRIAN GUISARDS 



THE rustics of East Anglia, Dr. Jessopp tells us, are 

 forgetting how to laugh, and whoever has gone much 

 in country ways knows that the wisest denizen of the 

 fields is becoming the saddest. Lapse of time affects 

 no other animal in the same way. The lark sings as 

 merrily, the young lambs play as sportively to-day as 

 they did when fields were tended by thralls of the 

 early Saxons, but the generations of man are not all 

 equally joyful ; for some live in peace, and others 

 under the shadow of war, one basks in contentment 

 and the next is made unhappy by new ambitions. 



It is by no means asserted that in the good old 

 times life was one long scene of merriment ; that the 

 rude forefathers of the hamlet were always jocund as 

 they drove their teams afield, or the milkmaid blythe 

 as she carried home her brimming pail, or that health 

 and plenty continually cheered the labouring swain. 

 But undoubtedly there was greater fun among them 

 than there is now, and for an obvious reason. The 

 rustic of our time looks townward for his amusements. 

 Cheap trips have carried him to the beach, the pier, 

 and the promenade ; to the low drinking-bar and the 



