XLII 



CAN any of us, by taking thought, reckon what his coal 

 costs him? Not merely in cash; that con- 

 sideration could scarcely figure under the head- 

 ing of this paper. Neither do I mean the grosser and 

 more patent effects of the coal industry, especially where 

 concomitant iron-ore has brought blast furnaces, with ruin 

 of all that is sweet and fair in landscape, sullied streams, 

 asphyxiated trees, rows of bleak, featureless cottages. It 

 was in the forest of Arden, upon the skirts of what is now 

 the Black Country, that Amiens once could not refrain 

 from singing : 



' Under the greenwood tree, Who lores to lie with me, 

 And tune his merry note Unto the sweet bird's throat. 



Come hither, coine hither, come hither ! 

 Here shall he see no enemy 



But winter and rough weather. 1 



Even if your lines lie not exactly where Mammon with 

 murky thumb has squeezed all beauty off the face of the 

 land, but have fallen on the outskirts of some great in- 

 dustrial centre, where green things still abound and wild 

 creatures come to rear their young even there you have 

 to pay something for your coal which is not settled with 

 the chandler's bill. Your stream may run as clear as others, 



