64 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



things that had been handed down from the last revolu- 

 tion, having been broken up, the gardens became a 

 possession of nettles and docks, and fewer and fewer were 

 the crown-imperials and hollyhocks to survive the fall of 

 the houses. The scaffold-poles, the harsh blocks of stone, 

 the rasping piles of bricks, the scores of cold earthenware 

 and iron articles belonging to the rows of villas about to 

 replace the old houses, looked more like ruin than pre- 

 paration as they lay stark and hideous among the misty 

 grass and still blue elms. There were days when the 

 thrushes still sang well among the rioting undisturbed 

 shrubberies. But soon men felled the elms and drove 

 away their shadows for ever, and all that dwelled or could 

 be imagined therein. No more would the trees be 

 enchanted by the drunken early songs of blackbirds. 

 The heavenly beauty of earthly things went away upon 

 the timber carriages and was stamped with mud. The 

 butts of the trees were used to decorate the gardens of 

 the new houses. Two, indeed, were spared by some one's 

 folly, and a main bough fell in the night and crushed 

 through a whole fortnight's brickwork. 



Those elms had come unconsciously to be part of the 

 real religion of men in that neighbourhood, and certainly 

 of that old man. Their cool green voices as they swayed, 

 their masses motionless against the evening or the summer 

 storms, created a sense of pomp and awe. They gave 

 mystic invitations that stirred his blood if not his slowly 

 working humble brain, and helped to build and to keep 

 firm that sanctuary of beauty to which we must be able 

 to retire if we are to be more than eaters and drinkers 

 and newspaper readers. When they were gone he won- 



