Surface Water 
the farm-land from the road that crossed it were, 
first these banks, now alder lined; then ditches 
as deep as the banks were high—man-deep, ferny, 
brambly; and so you came to the road itself 
between the ditches—the road, so Straight, so 
comfortably safe even after dark. 
Yet only the middle of this roadway had been 
shaped and metalled. A band of turf, ten feet 
wide or so, bordered it on both sides, and this 
turf was cut across at frequent intervals, to let 
the surface water from the metalled way drain off 
into the ditches. So, when you tried to take to 
the turf in hot and dusty weather—tempted by 
the cooler grass and the tree-shade, and wanting 
to see down into the thicket of the ditches— 
when you tried to do this, little cross channels 
balked your steps and (unless you were young 
enough to skip across these channels) you aban- 
doned the grass edges and took the gravelled 
road after all. 
But nothing disturbed the sense of great peace 
there. Though so much had, in faét, been altered 
by man’s industry you felt that the trees and the 
summer and the yellow road and its grassy sides 
had done it all and needed no more care. There 
was no scope for further intervention. The 
spring, the autumn, would in due course renew 
the beauty of the place; but man had nothing to 
do with it. Peace lived here; peace and quiet, 
si 
