WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 135 



how one of the family paid 40 for a substitute to serve 

 in the wars against the French. 



The mistress of the household still bakes a batch of 

 bread at home in the oven once now and then, priding 

 herself that it is never " dunch," or heavy. She makes 

 all kinds of preserves, and wines too cowslip, elder- 

 berry, ginger and used to prepare a specially delicate 

 biscuit, the paste being dropped on paper and baked 

 by exposure to the sun's rays only. She has a bitter 

 memory of some money having been lost to the family 

 sixty years ago through roguery, harping upon it as 

 a most direful misfortune : the old folk, even those 

 having a stocking or a teapot well filled with guineas, 

 thought a great deal of small sums. After listening 

 to a tirade of this kind, in the belief that the family 

 were at least half ruined, it turns out to be all about 

 100. Her grandmother after marriage travelled 

 home on horseback behind her husband ; there had 

 been a sudden flood, and the newly-married couple had 

 to wait for several hours till the waters went down 

 before they could pass. Times are altered now. 



Since this family dwelt here, and well within what 

 may be called the household memory, the very races 

 of animals have changed or been supplanted. The 

 cows in the field used to be longhorns, much more 

 hardy, and remaining in the meadows all the winter, 

 with no better shelter than the hedges and bushes 

 afforded. Now the shorthorns have come, and the 

 cattle are housed carefully. The sheep are horned 

 up in the lumber-room two or three horns were still to 



