

London to John O 1 Groat's. n 



are centuries old. The footsteps of a dozen generations 

 have given them the force and sanctity of a popular 

 right. A farmer might as well undertake to barricade 

 the turnpike road as to close one of these old paths 

 across his best fields. So far from obstructing them, he 

 finds it good policy to straighten and round them up, 

 and supply them with convenient gates or stiles, so that 

 no one shall have an excuse for trampling on his crops, 

 or for diverging into the open field for a shorter cut to 

 the main road. Blessings on the men who invented 

 them ! It was done when land was cheap, and public 

 roads were few; before four wheels were first geared 

 together for business or pleasure. They were the doing 

 of another age ; this would not have produced them. 

 They run through all the prose, poetry, and romance 

 of the rural life of England, permeating the history of 

 green hedges, thatched cottages, morning songs of the 

 lark, moonlight walks, meetings at the stile, harvest 

 homes of long ago, and many a romantic narrative of 

 human experience widely read in both hemispheres. 

 They will run on for ever, carrying with them the same 

 associations. They are the inheritance of landless mil- 

 lions, who have trodden them in ages past at dawn, 

 noon, and night, to and from their labor ; and in ages 

 to come the mowers and reapers shall tread them to the 

 morning music of the lark, and through Spring, Sum- 



