"POOR ST AFFORD * 235 



the squire and the clergyman. "A little while," he 

 said to me, one day, ruefully, "and your father will 

 be gone (Canon Reginald Smith, the Rector of the 

 parish), and John will be gone (his master the squire), 

 and George will be gone (himself) poor Stafford ! " 

 The potentates of the village were, clearly enough, in 

 this instance at all events, named in the ascending 

 scale. 



What joy it was, when we were children and the 

 day was hopelessly wet, to be allowed to put behind 

 us, for the time, the humdrum of everyday life, and 

 transfer ourselves to the mysterious and awe- 

 inspiring precincts of the barn ! No other spot, not 

 even the hay-loft, seemed so to fill our childish imagi- 

 nations. When once the big folding doors had been 

 shut behind us, we said good-bye to the outer world ; 

 we seemed to be in another world, a world of 

 shadows. Such muffled sounds as managed to reach 

 us from the outside seemed to come as from very 

 far away. Throw yourself down upon your back, 

 you that are "a child of larger growth," on a bright 

 summer afternoon, beneath the tall bracken, and, 

 looking up to the blue sky through its greenery, 

 allow yourself to fall into a day-dream. The stems 

 of the bracken will soon and easily transform them- 

 selves into a primeval forest of gigantic stature with 



