CHAPTER XI 



THE NATURAL MAN 



WE must not blind ourselves to the truth that the 

 young villager to-day often finds the country dull 

 and quiet, and will be off to the louder life of towns. 

 But the English village, even the old thatched ham- 

 lets in outlying places, where life to the young 

 countryman is dullest of all, is not that scene of 

 blank desolation that some of our friends imagine. 

 Are there villages in England from which all the 

 brawn and endurance, all the physical virtue, have 

 gone ? Fishing far into a summer night in Norway, 

 I lost my way hi the remote Hallingdal, near Rol- 

 shuus, and wandered till morning in a strange 

 twilight, trying to find my inn or station. By-and-by 

 I came to a village, and knocked at a cottage door. 

 There was no answer, the door gave at a push, and 

 I walked in, to find all deserted ; cottage after cottage 

 was the same. Here seemed to be some village of 

 a dream. We must wander far to find such a spot 

 as this at home: the exodus of the peasantry from 

 our villages, even the dullest and poorest, is not the 

 least like that I found in Hallingdal. There is dearth 

 of strong labour in many places, sometimes grievous 



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