1 8 THE LIFE OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 



child, ne'er a cow, ne'er a pig ' ; he explained that it was 

 Draycot, where three farmers — Jefferies, Neale, and 

 Puckeridge — lived as bachelors on arable farms worked 

 by unmarried labourers, and kept no pigs. Part of this 

 tale is in ' Round about a Great Estate.' A fair land is 

 this on a still, rainy and misty winter day, with its wide, 

 unoccupied fields and dreaming trees — no men, no sound, 

 and the Downs as imaginary as the sea-noise in a shell. 



On the other side of the Ridgeway from Draycot is 

 Chisledon, where many a Jefferies is buried, and Richard 

 was married. Its church and churchyard are drawn in 

 the opening of ' Greene Feme Farm.' East of Chisledon 

 is Badbury, the ' Okebourne ' of ' Round about a Great 

 Estate,' built about a steep coombe at the edge of the hiUs. 

 The pound can still be seen, and the nobly-balanced elm 

 at the head of the coombe ; but the windmill is gone. 

 Behind its little manor-house are the green lines of a 

 vanished building, with walnut-trees and a domed horse- 

 chestnut near. Its inns are full of monitory verses in this 

 kind : 



' My liquor is good, my measure is just ; 



Then pray excuse, I cannot trust. 



Pray be seated and call away 



For what you will, and I'll obey. 



* There's one thing more I do desire : 

 That you'll not stand before the fire, 

 Nor on the table attempt to sit 

 Unless a quart you pay for it. . . .' 



It has good, white farmhouses, and their grassy, thatched 

 sheds and stacks under elm and ash are right on the road. 

 The coombe has thatched cottages hidden behind fruit- 

 trees. Badbury Wick, the Okebourne Wick of ' Round 

 about a Great Estate,' is farther north on a by-road to 

 Coate. Going north-west from Badbury, the road passes 

 Medbourne and comes to Liddington. By the manor- 

 house with muUioned windows, in a coombe below the 

 road, used to be a mill, and this and the miller (I think 

 John Brind) were the models for Warren House and Andrew 



