from this is a capital peacock excellently rendered in conventional fashion. 

 It stands well above a high pedestal, one side of which is hollowed out 

 for a little seat. 



One may well understand what a pride and pleasure and amusing 

 interest these cHpped trees are to the cottage folk ; how after each year's 

 clipping they would discuss and criticise the result and note the progress 

 of the growth towards the hoped-for form. A pile of cheeses is a 

 favourite pattern, sometimes on a square base, with the topmost ornament 

 cut into a spire or even a crown. 



The English peasant has a love for ornament that always strives to 

 find some kind of expression. In many parts the thatcher makes a kind 

 of basket ornament on the top of his rick ; and the pattern of crossed 

 laths, pegged down with the hazel " spars " that finishes the thatched 

 cottage roof near the eaves, is of true artistic value. The carter 

 loves to dress his horses for town or market, and a fine team, with 

 worsted ribbons in mane and headstall, and quantities of gleaming 

 highly-polished brasses, is indeed a pleasant sight upon the country high 

 road. 



Now, alas ! when cheap rubbish, misnamed ornamental, floods village 

 shops and finds its way into the cottages, the cottager's taste, which was 

 always true and good as long as it depended on its own prompting and 

 instinct, and could only deal with the simplest materials, is rapidly 

 becoming bewildered and debased. All the more, therefore, let us value 

 and cherish these ornaments of the older traditions ; the bright little 

 gardens and the much-prized clipped yew. 



A usual feature of these cottage yews is that the seat is for one person 

 alone. The labourer sits in his little retreat enjoying his evening pipe 

 after his day's work, while the wife puts the children to bed and gets the 

 supper. Probably he has been harvesting all day, and his strong frame is 

 tired, with that feeling of almost pleasant fatigue that comes to a whole- 

 some body after a good day's work well done ; and when the hardly-earned 

 rest is thoroughly enjoyed. So he sits quite quiet, with one eye on the 

 possible interests of his outer world, the road, and the other on the 

 beauty of his flower-border. And what a pretty double border it is, 

 with its grand mass of pink Japan Anemone and well-flowered clump of 



1 08 



