PREFACE. 



Sed nunc dilatis averte negotia curis 



Et gratam requiem dona tibi quando licebit 



Per totam cessare diem. Non feneris ulla 



Mentio. 



JUVENAL. 



Put off all cares, lay business aside, and 

 allow yourself pleasing respite since you may 

 be idle all day long. Let there be no talk of 

 'money out at interest. 



PROBABLY the last touches given to the 

 average book are the few pages which form 

 the introduction. This is so in the present 

 instance. And an additional fact may be added : 

 that no ' circle of friends * have ' urged me to 

 publish ' these scattered reminiscences of out- 

 door scenes. Indeed my few friends whom I 

 have not consulted at all would certainly have 

 urged me in an opposite direction. Perhaps 

 this is the only originality connected with the 

 publication. 



So far as I have seen, the man born and 

 brought up in the country in England is not the 

 one whose love of outdoor life and of nature in 

 her more natural state becomes the chiefest 

 pleasure of his middle age existence. Too many 

 country born men thirst for the waters of 

 Babylon in lieu of those of Derbyshire or 

 Dartmoor and occasionally become so deeply 

 baptised in the business cares or joys of 

 Walbrook or Conduit Street that they quite 

 forget their old home and its humble and 



