306 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 



anyone pass who did not know of his presence, but 

 those who were aware used to give the grass a kick if 

 they went that way, when he would carry his white tail 

 swiftly round the corner of the rick. In winter hares 

 came nibbling at everything in the garden, and occasion- 

 ally in summer, if they fancied an herb : they would 

 have spoiled it altogether if free to stay there without 

 fear of some one suddenly appearing. 



Dogs there were in plenty, but all chained, except a 

 few mere puppies which practically lived indoors. It 

 was not safe to have them loose so near the wood, the 

 temptation to wander being so very strong. So that, 

 though there was a continual barking and long, mourn- 

 ful whines for liberty, the wild creatures came in time 

 to understand that there was little danger, and the 

 rabbit actually sat under the hay-rick. 



Pheasants mingled with the fowls, and, like the 

 fowls, only ran aside out of the way of people. In 

 early summer there were tiny partridge chicks about, 

 which rushed under the coop. The pheasants sometimes 

 came down to the kitchen door, so greedy were they. 

 With the dogs and ponies, the pheasants and rabbits, 

 the weasels and the stoats, and the ferrets in their 

 hutches, the place seemed really to belong more to the 

 animals than to the tenant. 



The forest strayed indoors. Bucks' horns, feathers 

 picked up, strange birds shot and stuffed, fossils from 

 the sand-pits, coins and pottery from the line of the 

 ancient Roman road, all the odds and ends of the forest, 

 were scattered about within. To the yard came the 

 cows, which, with bells about their necks, wandered into 

 the fern, and the swine, which searched and rooted 

 about for acorns and beech-mast in autumn. The men 

 who dug in the sand-pits or for gravel came this way in 



