OLD RECOLLECTIONS 275 



not give you impracticable orders, but those that 

 you do receive, you will carry out to the letter." 



This estate, like others near it, was alive 

 with winged and ground game, and the waters 

 were full of fine fish. The public were allowed 

 to roam freely over them, the home coverts 

 alone excepted. Yet they lost nothing by this 

 not even a little, rat-sized, scuttling rabbit. 

 If certain gentlemen had not taken the matter 

 up for the good of the people, some of their 

 breathing -grounds would have been lost to 

 them for ever. 



It seems to me that much of the useful 

 as well as the beautiful has been " improved " 

 away. 



Our old farmers understood what they were 

 about when they kept the grand old hedges 

 in order, the hedges that afforded shelter ; 

 keeping the fields and the stock " in the loo." 

 They protected their buildings, too, by woods 

 and copse-growth. The low, rambling build- 

 ings had huge chimneys and thickly thatched 

 roofs. The vegetable gardens and old orchards 

 closed them in also, and in many cases only 

 the thin blue wood-smoke curling up above 

 the tree-tops betrayed their whereabouts. East 

 winds and the keen nor'-easters upset stock in 



