136 WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 



be found. The pigs were of a different kind, and the 

 dogs and poultry. If the race of men have not 

 changed, they have altered their costume ; the smock- 

 frock lingered longest, but even that is going. 



Some of the old superstitions hung on till quite re- 

 cently. The value of horses made the arrival of foals 

 an important occasion, and then it was the custom 

 to call in the assistance of an aged man of wisdom 

 not exactly a wizard, but something approaching 

 it nearly in reputation. Even within the last fifteen 

 years the aid of an ancient like this used to be regu- 

 larly invoked in this neighbourhood ; in some my- 

 sterious way his simple presence and good will 

 gained by plentiful liquor was supposed to be 

 efficacious against accident and loss. The strange- 

 ness of the business was in the fact that his patrons 

 were not altogether ignorant or even uneducated ; 

 they merely carried on the old custom, not from faith 

 in it, but just because it was the custom. When the 

 wizard at last died nothing more was thought about 

 it. Another ancient used to come round once or 

 twice in the year, with a couple of long ashen staves ; 

 and the ceremony performed by him consisted in 

 dancing these two sticks together in a fantastic 

 manner to some old rhyme or story. 



The parlour is always full of flowers the mantel- 

 piece and grate in spring quite hidden by fresh green 

 boughs of horse-chestnut in bloom, or with lilac, 

 bluebells, or wild hyacinths ; in summer nodding 

 grasses from the meadows, roses, sweet-brier; in the 



