168 IN THE GREEN LEAF 



rushes. Knowing that the waters which I was 

 bent on seeing lay in a western direction, I only 

 examined some of the hollows that appeared to 

 run in that direction ; but they merely ended in 

 a dead pond fringed round with sand. Not a 

 tuft of rushes was there to break the bareness 

 of it, nor yet a pipit to enliven it ; so we are 

 soon out of that hollow and on the heath again, 

 to look around for bearings. Half-a-mile away 

 a dark, winding streak shows below, which we 

 at once make for these are brook alders. If 

 there is not water there now, it is moist along 

 that winding hollow ; so we decide to follow in 

 the line of these, one of our rustic friends 

 having told me that if I "could stick it" 

 meaning that it involved a great amount of 

 uncomfortable travelling I " might in about 

 a week, or it mought be a fortnit, see summat." 

 Three times was that alder hollow broken by 

 stout hedges that surrounded small farms, where 

 there was soil that in the course of time had 

 been broken up for cultivation. It is interest- 

 ing to see the sudden changes from corn to 

 fern brake, and from orchards laden with fruit 

 to alder swamp, side by side. In past days 

 all the ground that could be cultivated was 

 dealt with ; the rest remained as it is now. 



