106 The Gamekeeper at Home. 



they carry down, or filter through, in woodland dis- 

 tricts. Often the cottagers draw their water from a 

 small pool filled by such a ditch, and coated at the 

 bottom with a thick layer of decomposing leaves. 

 The taste of this water is strong enough to overcome 

 the flavour of their weak tea, yet they would rather 

 use such water than walk fifty yards to a brook. It 

 must, however, be admitted that the brooks at that 

 time are also tinctured with leaf, and there seems to 

 be no harm in it. 



Out from among these dead leaves in the ditch 

 protrudes a crooked branch fallen long since from the 

 oak, and covered with grey lichen. On the right 

 hand a tangled thicket of bramble with its uneven- 

 shaped stems closes the spot in, and on the left a stole 

 of hazel rises with the parasitical ' hardy fern ' fring- 

 ing it near the earth. The outer bark of the hazel is 

 very thin ; it is of a dark mottled hue ; bruise it 

 roughly, and the inner bark shows a bright green. 

 The lowly ivy creeps over the bank— its leaves with 

 five angles, and variegated with grey streaks. 

 Through the hawthorn bushes above comes a faint 

 but regular sound — it is the parting fibres of the 

 grass-blades in the meadow on the other side as the 

 cows tear them apart, steadily eating their way 

 onwards. The odour of their breath floats heavy on 



