152 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



forward to their letting season in the same way as at the 

 sea-side and in London. This is an immense breach in 

 the ancient isolated manners of country life. The old 

 farmers, and only a very little time ago, would as soon 

 have thought of flying as of opening their doors to 

 strangers, and indeed their rooms were scarcely furnished 

 in a way to receive them. On the other hand, many 

 farmhouses are empty altogether, and the land is un- 

 tilled, because it cannot be let at any price, and lapsing 

 backwards into barbarism. Everything used to be so 

 fixed : there was a sort of caste of farmers. A man 

 born in a farmhouse never thought of anything else 

 but farming, and waited and waited, perhaps till he was 

 grey, to get a farm ; now there are few who have such 

 fixed ideas, they are ready to take a chance at home or 

 abroad. Yet it is the same old country, and with the 

 new ways and science, and learning, and civilisation, it 

 is as with the machinery, they are all sunk and lost in the 

 firm old lines. It is all changed and just the same. 

 What a clamour there used to be about the damage 

 done by the hares and rabbits to the crops ! By-and- 

 by Parliament saicl, ' Shoot the hares and rabbits.' To 

 work they went and demolished them, and now, lo ! 

 there is a feeling getting about that we don't want to 

 be rid of all the hares and rabbits. Hares are almost 

 formed on purpose to be good sport, and make a jolly 

 good dish, a pleasant addition to the ceaseless round of 

 mutton and beef to which the dead level of civilisation 

 reduces us. Coursing is capital, the harriers fiist-rate. 

 Now every man who walks about the fields is more or 

 less at heart a sportsman, and the farmer having got 

 the right of the gun he is not unlikely to become to 

 some extent a game preserver. When they could not 

 get it they wanted to destroy it, now they have got it 



