244 ibLEHURST J 



hurrying up. The whiff of old Tomsett's pipe hangs 

 by the field-path where he passed a moment ago, 

 creeping in vacant enjoyment about the farm. It is 

 an hour when the mind launches away into boundless 

 seas, forecasting, remembering ; but always under 

 the pervading intense happiness, irrational, serene, 

 that sometimes runs through a pleasant dream. 

 Such ease of heart will be balanced all too soon by 

 another hour, when the travelling clouds seem to 

 touch the garden walls and the daylong rain sweeps 

 across the desolate frosted plots ; when the village, 

 a nest of sordid roofs seen between the storms, is a 

 hold of coarse vice and worthless lives, the men out 

 of work, typhoid fever in Mill Lane, and the propa- 

 ganda of "decline" at the full. Then the mind 

 ranges over all manner of miserable things it has 

 no concern with 



" 'An my sins 

 Come drizzlin' on my conscience sharp ez pins ; " 



the mass of London crime and wretchedness, forty 

 miles away, lies heavy on the wilful Arcadian ; heavy 

 lies that future to which Mr. Biles' educationalism 

 leads the herd ; the unchecked defilement of the 

 old beautiful country ; the passing away of the 



