THE END OF SUMMER 257 



dust of motor-cars or as additions to the property of the 

 landowner who happens to be renewing his fence ? They 

 used to be as beautiful and cool and fresh as rivers, these 

 green sisters of the white roads illuminated borders of 

 many a weary tale. But now, lest there should be no 

 room for the dust, they are turning away from them the 

 gypsies who used to camp there for a night. The indolent 

 District Council that is anxious to get rid of its difficulties 

 for the moment at the expense of a neighbouring 

 district it cares not will send out its policemen to drive 

 away the weary horses and sleeping children from the 

 acre of common land which had hitherto been sacred 

 to what? to an altar, a statue, a fountain, a seat? No! 

 to a stately notice-board; half-a-century ago the com- 

 mon of which this is a useless patch passed on easy terms 

 to the pheasant lords. The gypsies have to go. Give 

 them a pitch for the night and you are regarded as an 

 enemy of the community or perhaps even as a Socialist. 

 The gypsies shall be driven from parish to parish, and 

 finally settle down as squalid degenerate nomads in a 

 town where they lose what beauty and courage they had, 

 in adding to the difficulties of another council. Yet if 

 they were in a cage or a compound which it cost money 

 to see, hundreds would pay for a stare at their brown faces 

 and bright eyes, their hooped tents, their horses, their 

 carelessness of the crowd, and in a few years an imitation 

 of these things will be applauded in a " pageant " of the 

 town which has destroyed the reality. 



The grassy way ends with the moor at a pool beside a 



road, on one side of it six thatched cottages fenced by 



sycamore and ash and elm, on the other a grey farm and 



immense brown barn, within a long wall roofed with 



s 



