74 NATURE NEAR LONDON 



and the camp disappears, but the white ashes remain, and 

 next season the smoke will rise again. 



The barn here with its broad red roof, and the rick- 

 yard with the stone staddles, and the litter of chaff and 

 straw, is the central rendezvous all the year of the resident 

 labourers. Day by day, and at all hours, there is sure 

 to be some of them about the place. The stamp of the 

 land is on them. They border on the city, but are as 

 distinctly agricultural and as immediately recognisable 

 as in the heart of the country. This sturdy carter, as 

 he comes round the corner of the straw-rick, cannot be 

 mistaken. 



He is short and thickly set, a man of some fifty years, 

 but hard and firm of make. His face is broad and red, 

 his shiny fat cheeks almost as prominent as his stumpy 

 nose, likewise red and shiny. A fringe of reddish whis- 

 kers surrounds his chin like a cropped hedge. The eyes 

 are small and set deeply, a habit of half-closing the lids 

 when walking in the teeth of the wind and rain has 

 caused them to appear still smaller. The wrinkles at the 

 corners and the bushy eyebrows are more visible and pro- 

 nounced than the eyes themselves, which are mere bright 

 grey points twinkling with complacent good humour. 



These red cheeks want but the least motion to break 

 into a smile; the action of opening the lips to speak 

 is sufficient to give that expression. The fur cap he 

 wears allows the round shape of his head to be seen, and 

 the thick neck which is the colour of a brick. He 

 trudges deliberately round the straw-rick : there is some- 

 thing in the style of the man which exactly corresponds 

 to the barn, and the straw, and the stone staddles, and 

 the waggons. Could we look back three hundred years, 

 just such a man would be seen in the midst of the same 

 surroundings, deliberately trudging round the straw-ricks 



