332 HYND CASTLE. 



the decay of these had brought on a coat of soil. 

 About fifty years ago, the little mound was en- 

 closed and planted, chiefly with Scotch firs, but 

 with a border of deciduous trees, and a few inter- 

 spersed among the Scotch firs. For a time they 

 all grew luxuriantly; the firs made shoots of a 

 foot to two feet every year ; the laburnums hung 

 out their racemes of golden yellow, the moun- 

 tain-ash made the summer fragrant with its 

 flowers, and the autumn gay with its ber- 

 ries. The thrush and the blackbird came with 

 their mellow songs, the little birds with their more 

 lively notes, and the wood-pigeon moaned from 

 the deep covert of the pines. The magpie and 

 the jay, too, came to take account of the spare 

 eggs ; and weazels, and even a polecat, made their 

 appearance. In short, the place became a little 

 Oasis in the desart, a thriving miniature world, 

 both vegetable and animal ; and the promise that 

 it gave led to the planting of many square miles 

 of the moors. Meantime, an impulse was given 

 to agriculture, by the farmer being pulled on 

 to activity by high prices, and spurred in the 

 same direction by high rents, so that the marshes 

 were drained, the wastes improved, and a more 

 kindly appearance, and certainly a more mild and 

 uniform climate, obtained. 



Now it was generally supposed, and any body 

 but a very attentive observer of nature would 

 naturally have supposed, that matters were in the 

 fairest train for a well-wooded as well as agricul- 

 turally improved district ; and so it seemed for 

 some ten or fifteen years. But, alas ! the epiden- 

 dric miasma (as those who believe in aerial infec- 

 tions would probably call it) was in the air, and 



