OLD RECOLLECTIONS 277 



Those rugged guardians of the fields that 

 kept draughts of blight from the crops, and 

 nipping frosts from doing mischief at critical 

 periods, are gone, never to be replaced. 



One old farm I recall to mind, which was 

 tenanted and worked by a near relative of my 

 own. The farm hands, being all of them, at 

 the time I allude to, men of middle age, and 

 married, did not live in the house. 



From time to time, as life has worn on, I 

 have revisited that farmstead, often making 

 long stays there, in the lonely but beautiful old 

 dwelling. By long visits I mean, long for one 

 like myself; for, like my favourite wader, the 

 green sandpiper, I am continually on the move, 

 never long in one place. 



The roof was tiled, and thatched over that, 

 thatch on thatch, not because the under stuff had 

 got rotten, but to begin with. The result was, 

 that the house was cool in summer, and warm 

 in winter. The thatch was nearly three feet in 

 thickness, and it projected so far over the outer 

 walls that you could shelter from rain under the 

 hospitable-looking eaves, which were tunnelled 

 by flocks of sparrows in the same way that a 

 sandbank is by the sand-martins. The win- 

 dows were, of course, all of them, quarry lights 



