A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 123 



The shops are all aflare, doing their chief trade of 

 the week. Outside the Crocodile an old fellow in a 

 frock and a keeper-looking man in velveteens are 

 holding each other by the shoulders, prosing low and 

 affectionately in the earlier stages of beer. One or 

 two labourers in shirt sleeves come from the allot- 

 ments, wholesomely tired at the knees, no doubt, 

 with a broccoli in a handkerchief for to-morrow's 

 dinner. 



The night scarcely deepens. A glow hangs over 

 the fallen sun in the north-west, and the larger stars 

 of the constellations are pale and clear. As I turn 

 into my gate under the firs, I see Antares, winking 

 hazy-red on the edge of an eastern cloud-drift, under 

 the steady yellow lamp of Saturn. A landrail is call- 

 ing his restless crake-crake from his wonted meadow, 

 and I can hear the night-jars purring across the 

 valley two sounds which show beyond doubt that 

 Summer is established. 



June 6th. The rain which fell ten days ago was 

 all too little to help the garden ; and up to last night 

 it was bitter drought with cloudless noons and keen 

 nights. The roses were foul with vermin, aphis, cater- 

 pillar, " brocks " in their little tents of spume ; the Teas 

 as usual escaping much that the Perpetuals suffer. Out 



