The Flooded Lane 87 



CHAPTER VI. 



THE HAMLET COTTAGE ASTKOLOGY GHOST LORE HERBS THE 

 WAGGON AND ITS CREW STILES THE TRTSTING-PLACE THE 

 THATCHER SMUGGLERS AGUE. 



IN most large rural parishes there is at least one small 

 hamlet a mile or two distant from the main village. A few 

 houses and cottages stand loosely scattered about the fields, 

 no two of them together ; so separated, indeed, by hedges, 

 meadows, and copses as hardly to be called even a hamlet. 

 The communication with the village is maintained by a 

 long, winding narrow lane ; but foot passengers follow a 

 shorter path across the fields, which in winter is sure to be 

 ankle deep in mud, by the gateways and stiles. The lane, 

 at the same time, is crossed by a torrent, which may spread 

 out to thirty yards wide in the hollow, shallow at the edges, 

 but swift and deep in the middle. 



If you wait a couple of hours it will subside, as the 

 farmers lower down the brook pull up the hatches to let 

 the flood pass. If you are in a hurry, you must climb up 

 into the double-mound beside the lane, and force your way 

 along it between thorns and stoles till you reach the channel 

 through which the current is rushing. Across that an old 

 tree trunk will probably lie, and by grasping a bough as a 

 handrail it is possible to get over. But either way, by lane 

 or footpath, you are sure to get what the country folk call 

 4 watchet,' i.e. wet. So that in winter the hamlet is practi- 



