3o8 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



the purpose of keeping the deer in, it was as useful as 

 the pale of oak. Oak is not so plentiful nowadays. 

 The high spars were the especial vaunting-places of the 

 little brown wrens which perched there and sang, in 

 defiance of all that the forest might hold. Rabbits 

 crept under, but the hares waited till evening and went 

 round by the gates. Presently the path turned and the 

 squire passed a pond partly dried up, from the margin 

 of which several pigeons rose up, clattering their wings. 

 They are fond of the neighbourhood of water, and are 

 sure to be there some time during the day. The path 

 went upwards, but the ascent was scarcely perceptible 

 through hazel bushes, which became farther apart and 

 thinner as the elevation increased, and the soil was less 

 rich. Some hawthorn bushes succeeded, and from 

 among these he stepped out into the open park. No- 

 thing could be seen of the manor-house here. It was 

 hidden by the roll of the ground and the groups of trees. 

 The close sward was already a little brown — the tramp- 

 ling of hoofs as well as the heat causes the brownish 

 hue of fed sward, as if it were bruised. He went out 

 into the park, bearing somewhat to the right and passing 

 many hawthorns, round the trunks of which the grass 

 was cut away in a ring by the hoofs of animals seeking 

 shadow. Far away on a rising knoll a herd of deer 

 were lying under some elms. In front were the downs, 

 a mile or so distant ; to the right, meadows and corn- 

 fields, towards which he went. There was no house nor 

 any habitation in view ; in the early part of the year, 

 the lambing-time, there was a shepherd's hut on wheels 

 in the fields, but it had been drawn away. 



According to tradition, there is no forest in England 

 in which a king has not hunted. A king, they say, 

 hunted here in the old days of the cross-bow ; but 



