WILD LIFE IN A SOUTHERN COUNTY. 207 



trunk was found bored with winding tunnels, through 

 which a pistol bullet might have been passed. This 

 had been done by an enormous grub, as long and 

 large as one's finger. 



Old-world plants and flowers linger still like heir- 

 looms in the farmhouse garden, though their pleasant 

 odour is ofttimes choked by the gaseous fumes from 

 the furnaces of the steam-ploughing engines as they 

 pass along the road to their labour. Then a dark 

 vapour rises above the tops of the green elms, and 

 the old walls tremble and the earth itself quakes 

 beneath the pressure of the iron giant, while the atmos- 

 phere is tainted with the smell of cotton waste and 

 oil. How little these accord with the quiet, sunny 

 clumber of the homestead ! But the breeze comes, 

 and ere the rattle of the wheels and cogs has died 

 away the fragrance of the flowers and green things 

 has reasserted itself. Such a sunny slumber, and 

 such a fragrance of flowers, both wild and cultivated, 

 have dwelt round and over the place these two hun- 

 dred years, and mayhap before that. It is perhaps 

 a fancy only, yet I think that where men and nature 

 have dwelt side by side time out of mind there is a 

 sense of a presence, a genius of the spot, a haunting 

 sweetness and loveliness not elsewhere to be found. 

 The most lavish expenditure, even when guided by 

 true taste, cannot produce this feeling about a modern 

 dwelling. 



At Wick, by the side of the garden path, grows a 

 perfect little hedge of lavender ; every drawer in 



