HISTORY AND THE PARISH 179 



ceremonious use for which I have small natural respect, 

 so that I have been denied the power of appreciating 

 either a great religious pomp or the dancing of Made- 

 moiselle Genee. But some men, particularly sailors and 

 field labourers, but also navvies and others who work 

 heavily with their hands, have this glory of use. Their 

 faces, their clothes, their natures all appear to act and 

 speak harmoniously, so that they cause a strong impression 

 of personality which is to be deeply enjoyed in a world 

 of masks, especially of black clerical masks. One of 

 the best examples of this kind was a gamekeeper who 

 daily preceded me by twenty or thirty yards in a morning 

 walk up through a steep wood of beeches. He was a short, 

 stiffly-built and stoutish man who wore a cap, thick skirted 

 coat and breeches, leather gaiters and heavy boots, all 

 patched and stained, all of nearly the same colour as his 

 lightish-brown hair and weathered skin, but not so dark 

 as the gun over his shoulder. The shades of this colour 

 were countless and made up like the colour of a field 

 of ripe wheat, which they would have resembled had they 

 not been liberally dusted all over, just as his brown beard 

 was grizzled. He went slowly up, swinging slightly at 

 the shoulders and always smoking a pipe of strong shag 

 tobacco of which the fumes hovered in the moist air with 

 inexpressible sweetness and a good brown savour : if I may 

 say so, the fit emanation of the brown woodland man 

 who, when he stood still, looked like the stump of a tree. 



N 2 



