274 Poachers and Poaching. 



there, and dormice hang their ball-like nests 

 among the hazel boughs. As the coppice grows 

 the squirrel comes to the nuts, wood pigeons 

 coo, and jays screech in the glades. Even a few 

 pheasants have wandered here, and an occasional 

 woodcock breeds among the dead oak leaves. 



Just as the kindly sheltering woods have 

 brought birds which are foreign to the district, so 

 they have brought human settlers, and standing 

 above on the bare Common we see rising from 

 the trees columns of pale blue smoke. In the 

 primitive cottages from whence these come re- 

 side the charcoal burners. Men they are whose 

 lives glide on almost without influence from 

 the outside world quiet workers of many 

 virtues. They observe well times and seasons, 

 are full of country proverbs, wise as to signs of 

 wind and weather, and draw deductions from the 

 nature around them. Their occupation is such 

 as keeps them in the woods for months at a spell, 

 not even leaving them on Sundays. And so it 

 comes that the decay of the black bryony berries 

 and the rustle of the dead oak leaves have lessons 

 for them ; and as the winds of autumn sough 

 through the bare branches, they are conscious 

 that a time will come when they too must pass 

 away. Piety in men so lived may seem strange, 

 but when a man stands face to face with nature, 

 by far the best elements of his nature are de- 

 veloped. He is brought, as it were, back to 



