328 WITH NATURE AND A CAMERA. 



the town clock because " its hands pointed to one 

 thing and it kept on striking and striking another 

 every quarter of an 'oor " ; and he saluted a girl 

 who was washing the solicitor's office steps down 

 with "Is thy faather in?" 



He told us that he had once been summoned 

 by the parish in which he lived to appear at York 

 as a witness in a trial against a farmer for over- 

 stocking the moor with sheep. When the witnesses 

 were about to enter the "justice room," one of 

 them, on catching sight of the judge and advocates 

 in their wigs and gowns, ran back to him in alarm 

 and exclaimed " Ay, Poonder, I niver saw such a 

 lot of grey-headed old men all together in my life ! 

 They must be older than Methuselah ! " 



During our stay an old farmer dropped in and 

 ordered himself a glass of ale. In the course of 

 conversation it fell out that he had been to London 

 three times, and stayed for several days upon each 

 occasion. I asked him how he liked the Metropolis. 

 "Fine! " said he: "London's a grand spot to spend 

 a holiday at, but I always took good care niver 

 to be oot after dark." 



In the summer of 1896 a pair of Barn Swallows 

 made their nest and reared a brood of young in 

 a fowl-house at the back of Tan Hill Inn, and 

 the landlord told me he used to leave the door 

 open every night for their convenience. I examined 

 the old nest with a ladder, and calculated that, as 

 the building was one of two floors, and it was 

 nearly in the highest part of the roof, it must have 

 been not less than 1,750 feet above the sea-level. 



Last Whitsuntide my brother and I found our- 

 selves in a remote Essex village, and, as we were 

 unable to obtain any sort of inn accommodation, we 

 stayed with a gamekeeper in his tiny, old-fashioned 



