256 LIFE AND SPORT IN HAMPSHIRE 



oak blazing in the open hearth ? The little cracks 

 and simmerings, subtler undertones, the flicker, the 

 clean grey ash ; these are so pleasant in the wood fire. 

 One can feed it, too, without soiling the hands; and, 

 once the wood is warm and dry, and there are glowing 

 embers, a touch with foot or fingers will make the 

 flame shoot up again. Yet it is going out of favour 

 in the country. Often I find faggots rotting in woods 

 our own and others where they have lain for years. 

 It was never so when the farmhouses and cottages had 

 great brick hearths and chimney corners, and all the 

 village bakers made their bread in ovens heated by the 

 wood fire. Then a single village baker, with a good 

 business, would burn more than five thousand bavins 

 in the year, and the bidding for firewood was keen. 

 We may come back to the wood fire some day, but 

 now it is ousted by coal and little oil stoves. 



For weather wisdom that is won by watching, go to 

 the wood worthy. He still can be trusted. Though 

 the weather-wise countryman has not quite gone, I 

 suppose he is doomed. Many of his old rule of 

 thumb predictions as to wet weather or fine, hot or 

 cold, have been smiled away. He swore by the moon. 

 With large, slow finger handier at the farm or wood- 

 land tools than in separating the pages of books he 

 would turn over his thumbed almanac to find the age 

 of the moon before he said for sure whether we might 

 look for a continuance of the fair weather or the foul. 



