46 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



Suburban streets which a minute before were crowded 

 with ladies and children (most gentlemen are in town at 

 midday) are suddenly vacated when the word passes 

 that cattle are coming. People rush everywhere, into 

 gardens, shops, back lanes, anywhere, as if the ringing 

 scabbards of charging cavalry were heard, or the peculiar 

 thumping rattle of rifles as they come to the " present " 

 before a storm of bullets. It is no wonder that towns- 

 folk exhibit a fear of cattle which makes their friends 

 laugh when they visit the country after such experi- 

 ences as these. This should be put down with a firm 

 hand. 



By the roadside here the hay tyers, who cut up the 

 hayricks into trusses, use balances a trifling matter, but 

 sufficient to mark a difference, for in the west such men 

 use a steelyard slung on a prong, the handle of the prong 

 on the shoulder and the points stuck in the rick, with 

 which to weigh the trusses. Wooden cottages, wooden 

 barns, wooden mills are also characteristic. 



Mouchers come along the road at all times and 

 seasons, gathering sacksful of dandelions in spring, 

 digging up fern roots and cowslip mars for sale, cutting 

 briars for standard roses, gathering water-cresses and 

 mushrooms, and in the winter cutting rushes. 



There is a rook with white feathers in the wing which 

 belongs to an adjacent rookery, and I have observed a 

 blackbird also streaked with white. One January day, 

 when the snow was on the ground and the frost was 

 sharp, when the pale sun seemed to shine brightest 

 round the rim of the disk, as if there were a band of 

 stronger light there, I saw a white animal under a 

 heap of poles by the wayside, near the great hedge I 

 have mentioned. It immediately concealed itself, but, 

 thinking that it was a ferret gone astray, I waited, 



