NATURE IN ENGLAND 19 



pounded stone at regular distances, every fragment 

 of which will go through a two-inch ring. The 

 roads are mended only in winter, and are kept as 

 smooth and hard as a rock. No swells or * thank- 

 y'-ma'ams ' in them to turn the water; they shed 

 the water like a rounded pavement. On the hill, 

 three miles from Stratford, where a finger-post points 

 you to Hampton Lucy, I turn and see the spire of 

 Shakespeare's church between the trees. It lies in 

 a broad, gentle valley, and rises above much foliage. 



* I hope and praise God it will keep f oine, ' said the 

 old woman at whose little cottage I stopped for 

 ginger-beer, attracted by a sign in the window. 



* One penny, sir, if you please. I made it myself, 

 sir. I do not leave the front door unfastened ' 

 (undoing it to let me out) * when I am down in the 

 garden. ' A weasel runs across the road in front of 

 me, and is scolded by a little bird. The body of 

 a dead hedgehog festering beside the hedge. A 

 species of St. John's- wort in bloom, teasels, and a 

 small convolvulus. Also a species of plantain with 

 a head large as my finger, purple tinged with white. 

 Road margins wide, grassy, and fragrant with 

 clover. Privet in bloom in the hedges, panicles of 

 small white fiowers / faintly sweet-scented. * As 

 clean and white as privet when it flowers,' says 

 Tennyson in * Walking to the Mail. ' The road 

 and avenue between noble trees, beech, ash, elm, 

 and oak. All the fields are bounded by lines of 

 stately trees; the distance is black with them. A 

 large thistle by the roadside, with homeless bumble- 



