NATURE IN ENGLAND. 21 



two-inch ring. The roads are mended only in win- 

 ter, and are kept as smooth and hard as a rock. No 

 swells or ' thank-y'-ma'ms' in them to turn the water ; 

 they shed the water like a rounded pavement. On 

 the hill, three miles from Stratford, where a finger- 

 post points you to Hampton Lucy, I turn and see the 

 spire of Shakespeare's church between the trees. It 

 lies in a broad, gentle talley, and rises above much 

 foliage. * I hope and praise God it will keep foiue,' 

 said the old woman at whose little cottage I stopped 

 for ginger-beer, attracted by a sign in the window. 

 4 One penny, sir, if you please. I made it myself, sir. 

 I do not leave the front door unfastened ' (undoing it 

 to let me out) ' when I am down in the garden.' A 

 weasel runs across the road in front of me, and is 

 scolded by a little bird. The body of a dead hedge- 

 hog festering beside the hedge. A species of St. 

 Johnswort in bloom, teasels, and a small convolvu- 

 lus. Also a species of plaintaiu with a head large as 

 my finger, purple tinged with white. Road margins 

 wide, grassy, and fragrant with clover. Privet in 

 bloom in the hedges, panicles of small white flowers 

 faintly sweet-scented. * As clean and white as privet 

 when it flowers,' says Tennyson in ' Walking to the 

 Mail.' The road an avenue between noble trees, 

 beech, ash, elm, and oak. All the fields are bounded 

 by lines of stately trees ; the distance is black with 

 them. A large thistle by the road-side, with home- 

 Jess bumble-bees on the heads as at home, some of 

 them white-faced and stingless. Thistles rare in this 



