NO MAN'S LAND. 215 



his chin in his hand, he said, " I see I have made 

 a great mistake ! " After all he was candid, and he 

 owned that he had received then and there the 

 impression that such moat tangle as that he could 

 never paint ; all his peculiar artistic fads and theories 

 failed him before my humbler friend's subject. 



The light fades, night is coming ; we have, how- 

 ever, a good resting-place near, for this, the second 

 night of our wanderings. The church shows first, and 

 then a little inn, with about half-a-dozen cottages. 

 All seems just as it used to be many years ago, and 

 I go to make a few calls, and to find out, if I can, 

 some of the old folks I once knew so well. It seems 

 a reading-room has been established, and a young 

 men's friendly society is in full swing of prosperity. 

 This is wonderful, for the hamlet had once a very ill 

 name, one which it fully deserved. No stranger 

 could pass through without insult of some kind, in 

 former days. If this was resented, the man would 

 have a bad time of it, for the cowardly hulking 

 fellows would combine, and do in a body what they 

 dared not single-handed. 



This bad state of things had, I believe, its first 

 check when repairs about the old church were con- 



