A JOURNAL KEPT IN THE COUNTRY. 177 



there are yellow and green ones that I'm not sure 

 aren't perhaps better, in some ways, you know." 



" We'll try," says Uncle Phil. 



So we went and ate Warringtons and Broom Girls 

 and Roaring Lions under the apple trees, whilst the 

 band blared in the distance, and faint halloos came 

 to us from the festal scene, and Alice talked to us 

 and Barney, better music than many bands, and 

 sweeter sense than most speeches ; until Time, in a 

 cap and apron, summoned Miss Alice to please come 

 in directly at once, and left us to debate, in the course 

 of many turns round the garden, the sad labours and 

 still sadder pleasures of John Botting, and whether 

 any one but himself could mend them, if any one 

 would. 



22nd. The slacker farmers are still haymaking, 

 and a week ago harvest began upon the forwarder 

 lands. Among the sheep-pastures and the waste ill- 

 fenced uplands of thin " seeds," the pheasant-coverts 

 and the cabbage-widths, there is still to be found a 

 fair proportion of cornfields, waving crests and ridges 

 of wheat and barley, yellowing or in the full dusty 

 reddish bloom of ripeness, and stubble-slopes set 

 with long perspectives of white oat-shocks; though 

 we all say that it is a mere survival of other years, a 

 make-believe of agriculture. The Atlantic liner, the 



N 



