140 THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



the very synonym of Merry England are yet there, 

 and long may they remain. Without hedges England 

 would not be England. Hedges, thick and high, and 

 full of flowers, birds, and living creatures, of shade 

 and flecks of sunshine dancing up and down the bark 

 of the trees I love their very thorns. You do not 

 know how much there is in the hedges. 



We have still the woods, with here and there a 

 forest, the beauty of the hills, and the charm of 

 winding brooks. I never see roads, or horses, men, 

 or anything when I get beside a brook. There is 

 the grass, and the wheat, the clouds, the delicious sky, 

 and the wind, and the sunlight which falls on the 

 heart like a song. It is the same, the very same, 

 only I think it is brighter and more lovely now than 

 it was twenty years ago. 



Along the footpath we travel slowly ; you cannot 

 walk fast very long in a footpath ; no matter how 

 rapidly at first, you soon lessen your pace, and so 

 country people always walk slowly. The stiles how 

 stupidly they are put together. For years and years 

 every one who has passed them, as long as man can re- 

 member, has grumbled at them ; yet there they are still, 

 with the elms reaching high above, and cows gazing 

 over cows that look so powerful, but so peacefully 

 yield the way. They are a better shape than the cattle 

 of the ancient time, less lanky, and with fewer corners ; 

 the lines, to talk in yachtsman's language, are finer. 

 Roan is a colour that contrasts well with meadows 

 and hedges. The horses are finer, both cart-horse and 

 nag. Approaching the farmsteads, there are hay-ricks, 

 but there are fewer corn-ricks. Instead of the rows on 



