154 FIELD AND HEDGEROW, 



the mind of the town. No sooner has a man made a 

 little money in the city, than away he rushes to the 

 fields and rivers, and nothing would so deeply hurt the 

 pride of the nouveaux riches as to insinuate that he was 

 not quite fully imbued with the spirit and the knowledge 

 of the country. If you told him he was ignorant of 

 books he might take that as a compliment ; if you sug- 

 gested in a sidelong way that he did not understand 

 horses he would never more be friends with you again. 



Nothing has died out, but everything has grown 

 stronger that appertains to the land. Heraldry, for 

 instance, and genealogy, county history — people don't 

 want to be sheriffs now, but they would very much like 

 to be able to say one of their ancestors was sheriff so 

 many centuries ago. The old crests, the old coats of 

 arms, are more thought of than ever ; every fragment 

 of antiquity valued. Almost everything old is of the 

 country, either of the mansion or of the cottage ; old 

 silver plate, and old china, and works of the old masters in 

 the one, old books, old furniture, old clocks in the other. 



The sweet violets bloom afresh every spring on the 

 mounds, the cowslips come, and the happy note of the 

 cuckoo, the wild rose of midsummer, and the golden 

 wheat of August. It is the same beautiful old country 

 always new. Neither the iron engine nor the wooden 

 plough alter it one iota, and the love of it rises as con- 

 stantly in our hearts as the coming of the leaves. The 

 wheat as it is moved from field to field, like a quarto 

 folded four times, gives us in the mere rotation of crops J 

 a fresh garden every year. You have scented the bean-] 

 field and seen the slender heads of barley droop. Th( 

 useful products of the field are themselves beautiful ; the ^ 

 sainfoin, the blue lucerne, the blood-red trifolium, the 

 clear yellow of the mustard, give more definite colours; 



