296 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



could hoot with safety. As for the squire, he did not 

 approve of rifles. He adhered to his double-barrel ; and 

 if a buck had to be killed, he depended on his smooth- 

 bore to carry a heavy ball forty yards with fair accuracy. 

 The fawns were knocked over with a wire cartridge 

 unless Mr. Martin was in the way — he liked to try a 

 rifle. Even in summer the old squire generally had his 

 double-barrel with him — perhaps he might come across 

 a weasel, or a stoat, or a crow. That was his excuse ; 

 but, in fact, without a gun the woods lost half their 

 meaning to him. With it he could stand and watch 

 the buck grazing in the glade, or a troop of fawns — 

 sweet little creatures — so demurely feeding down the 

 grassy slope from the beeches. Already at midsummer 

 the nuts were full formed on the beeches ; the green 

 figs, too, he remembered were on the old fig-tree trained 

 against the warm garden wall. The horse-chestnuts 

 showed the little green knobs which would soon enlarge 

 and hang all prickly, like the spiked balls of a holy- 

 water sprinkle, such as was once used in the wars. Of 

 old the folk, having no books, watched every living 

 thing, from the moss to the oak, from the mouse to the 

 deer ; and all that we know now of animals and plants 

 is really founded upon their acute and patient observa- 

 tion. How many years it took even to find out a good 

 salad may be seen from ancient writings, wherein half 

 the plants about the hedges are recommended as salad 

 herbs : dire indeed would be our consternation if we had 

 to eat them As the beech-nut^ appear, and the horse- 

 chestnuts enlarge, and the fig swells, the apples turn red 

 and become visible in the leafy branches of the apple- 

 trees. Like horses, deer are fond of apples, and in 

 former times, when deer-stealing was possible, they were 

 often decoyed with them. 



