A Farmer’s Life 
dentally he mentioned that some gipsies had 
received permission to go into his fields to colleét 
acorns; but he didn’t say why they wanted them. 
But these things he only mentioned incident- 
ally. ‘They served to keep my attention on the 
subjects at hand; but I think there were other 
scenes present to my uncle’s imagination. Was 
he not dreaming of his boyhood in old Farn- 
borough, when villagers let their pigs out, to 
run about the village street? At any rate that 
is what he told of by and by. Of that he spoke, 
and of many cognate matters, by his fireside in 
the evening. ‘The dead times were alive again 
for him. Or were they so dead after all? At 
any rate living illustrations of them had charmed 
my senses all day; for the autumn fields, the 
smell of burning weeds, the ways of pigs, were 
not exactly modern. 
And so, when at last I left, brimful of anec- 
dotes and country chatter, the centuries of 
England’s life felt familiar, as if only the darkness 
hid them. Nothing was really gone. Unchang- 
ing country interests and affairs hung round. 
True, I no longer was reminded of couch fires, 
no scent of smoke took my attention. But, 
better than that, under the hedgerow trees many 
rich patches of fragrance came from the oaks or 
from the acorns under them. The night was 
not very dark, but foggy and still and moist. 
7 
