96 The Amateur Poacher. 



the road, and the front door opens on precisely the 

 other side. Hard by is a row of beehives. Though 

 the modern hives are at once more economical and 

 humane, they have not the old associations that 'cling 

 about the straw domes topped with broken earthen- 

 ware to shoot off the heavy downfall of a thunder- 

 storm. 



Everywhere the apple-bloom ; the hum of bees ; 

 children sitting on the green beside the road, their 

 laps full of flowers ; the song of finches ; and the 

 low murmur of water that glides over flint and 

 stone so shadowed by plants and grasses that the 

 sunbeams cannot reach and glisten on it. Thus the 

 straggling flower-strewn village stretches along be- 

 neath the hill and rises up the slope, and the swallows 

 wheel and twitter over the gables where are their 

 hereditary nesting-places. The lane ends on a broad 

 dusty road, and, opposite, a quiet thatched house of 

 the larger sort stands, endways to the street, with an 

 open pitching before the windows. There, too, the 

 swallows' nests are crowded under the eaves, flowers 

 are trained against the wall, and in the garden stand 

 the same beautiful apple trees. But within, the lower 

 part of the windows that have recess seats are 

 guarded by horizontal rods of iron, polished by the 

 backs of many men. It is an inn, and the rods are 



