160 HAMPSHIRE DAYS 



lation, and journeyed long distances over the lonely 

 plains to meet and sing against him. How curiously 

 is this like our island grasshoppers, who have come to 

 us unchanged from the past, and are neither Saxons 

 nor Celts, but true, original, ancient Britons the little 

 grass-green people with passionate souls ! You can 

 almost hear him say this little green minstrel you 

 have been watching when his shrill note has brought 

 back as shrill an answer as he resolutely sets out 

 over the tall, bending grasses in the direction of the 

 sound, " I'll teach him to sing ! " 



So interested was I in watching them, so delighted 

 to be in this society, whose members, for all their 

 shape, no longer moved about in, to me, unimagin- 

 able worlds, that I went day after day and spent 

 long hours with them. I could best watch their 

 battles by getting down on my knees in the good- 

 for-nothing ("heath false brome") grass, so as to 

 bring my eyes within two or three feet of them. 

 My attitude, kneeling with bowed head by the half- 

 hour at a stretch, one day attracted the attention 

 of some persons who had come in a carriage to pic- 

 nic under the trees at the foot of the slope, four 

 or five hundred yards away. There were from time 

 to time little explosions of laughter, and at last a 

 young lady of twelve or fourteen cried, or piped out, 

 in a clear, far-reaching voice, " Holy man ! " She 

 was an impudent monkey. 



So far not a word has been said of the female, 



