THE COUNTRY OF RICHARD JEFFERIES 21 



houses and cottages, less than two miles from Swindon 

 on the Hungerford road. The first house on the right 

 hand, where a slight hill dips to the little bridge — a white 

 cottage with an over-tall chimney — was once John Brown's. 

 His father, Job Brown's, was the next house on the left. 

 Beyond the bridge, on the right, is 'The Sun,' once a 

 thatched inn whose sign was a ' veritable oriflamme '; there, 

 once a year, men used to assemble to eat blackbird-pie and 

 drink. Close by, on opposite sides of the road, were the 

 millwright's and Ikey the blacksmith's shops. The mill- 

 wright was George Bramble ; his wife kept * The Sun,' and 

 they brewed their own ale. Next to this inn is little Coate 

 Farm house, guarded from the road by a high wall — 

 over which Amaryllis watched the country-side going to 

 the fair — and a row of pollard -limes. Stripped of its 

 thatch, its ha-ha gone, its orchard neglected, it is the ghost 

 of the fragrant home described so often in ' Wild Life,' 

 in ' Amaryllis,' and in many essays, by the man whose 

 birth here is recorded on a tablet at the gate. A wooden 

 * squeeze-belly ' stile opposite admits to a footpath over 

 fields that were once part of Coate Farm. Just past the 

 thatched outbuildings of the farm a by-road, bordered by 

 elms and good ash-trees, leads to Day House Farm, its 

 elms and pollard willows, and half a hundred moles nailed 

 to a pigsty wall. Jefferies' wife was born and bred at 

 Day House. Beyond this turning, on both sides of the 

 road, are the cottages of Coate, close to the road, some of 

 only one floor — the very lowliest of defences against wind 

 and world in these parts — and one ruinous, with long, 

 narrow gardens suggesting that they were once part of 

 the grassy edging to the road. John Smith's shanty was 

 on the right ; ' The Spotted Cow ' is almost opposite. Be- 

 yond that are several cottages and a horsechestnut-tree ; 

 and on the other side of the road, still deep in grass, as 

 when Jefferies mused over it, is the milestone saying 

 '79 miles to London.' The last house, if it is strictly in 

 Coate, is at the corner of a branch-road to Wanborough, 

 and has a thatch with well-stitched edges — occupied, in 



