28 Country Rambles. 



the ancient abundance of some of the less common 

 plants, where exposed, such as the goldilocks and the 

 forget-me-not, though higher up the valley, like the prim- 

 roses, these are still to be found in fair quantity. Never 

 mind : the anemones, the golden celandine, so glossy 

 and so sensitive, the cuckoo-flowers, the marsh-marigold, 

 and a score of others, are untouched, and will remain 

 untouched. There is something a great deal better 

 than simple possession of the rare and strange, and 

 that is the happy faculty of appreciation of the lovely 

 old and common, a faculty that needs only culture to 

 become an inexhaustible mine of enjoyment. Every 

 man finds himself richer than he imagines when he puts 

 the real value upon what Providence has given him. 



For the return, we may either mount the hill, and get 

 into the lanes which pass through Hale or Ringway, and 

 so to Altrincham; or we may follow the downward 

 course of the stream, by the path enjoyed in coming, as 

 far as Warburton's farm, already mentioned. Arrived 

 here, for variety sake, the better course is not by the 

 tempting green lane, but through the fields below and to 

 the left, which are full of every kind of rural beauty, and 

 here and there gemmed with cowslips. Different paths 

 take us either past the river again, and so by way of Ashley 

 to Bowdon, or into the road that leads to the Downs. 

 The latter is the shortest, but the Ashley way is the 

 pleasanter. The distance in the whole is a trifle over 

 that by the road, or, omitting fractions, four miles. All 

 the way along the birds are in full trill ; with this great 



