MY OLD VILLAGE. 32 r 



have been dropping away. The strong young man who 

 used to fill us with such astonishment at the feats he 

 would achieve without a thought, no gymnastic training, 

 to whom a sack of wheat was a toy. The strong young 

 man went one day into the harvest-field, as he had done 

 so many times before. Suddenly he felt a little dizzy. 

 By-and-by he went home and became very ill with 

 sunstroke ; he recovered, but he was never strong again; 

 he gradually declined for twelve months, and next 

 harvest-time he was under the daisies. Just one little 

 touch of the sun, and the strength of man faded as a 

 leaf. The hardy dark young man, built of iron, broad, 

 thick, and short, who looked as if frost, snow, and heat 

 were all the same to him, had something go wrong in 

 his lung : one twelvemonth, and there was an end. 

 This was a very unhappy affair. The pickaxe and the 

 spade have made almost a full round to every door ; 1 

 do not want to think any more about this. Family 

 changes and the pressure of these hard times have 

 driven out most of the rest ; some seem to have quite 

 gone out of sight ; some have crossed the sea ; some 

 have abandoned the land as a livelihood. Of the few, 

 the very few that still remain, still fewer abide in their 

 original homes. Time has shuffled them about from 

 house to house like a pack of cards. Of them all, I 

 verily believe there is but one soul living in the same 

 old house. If the French had landed in the mediaeval 

 way to harry with fire and sword, they could not have 

 swept the place more clean. 



Almost the first thing I did with pen and ink as a 

 boy was to draw a map of the hamlet with the roads and 

 lanes and paths, and I think some of the ponds, and 

 with each of the houses marked and the occupier's name, 

 Of course it was very roughly done, and not to any 



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