190 AN ANGLER'S HOURS xi 



note, and divulged the secret. " Well, sir, 

 it's principally rolling and mowing. You 

 roll the lawn and you mow the lawn, and 

 when it's very dry you water it of an even- 

 ing. And when you've done that carefully 

 for five hundred years you'll have a lawn 

 something like this." I wish I knew what 

 the American said, or did. 



There are two places where the wall has 

 lost a few stones, and is thus low enough for 

 a man to lean on his elbows and look over 

 into the river twenty feet below, or across 

 the stream to the great grass meadow oppo- 

 site. There is something strange about that 

 meadow, or plain, as from its size it deserves 

 to be called. A man standing in it fishing 

 in the river shall ever and anon hear sounds 

 behind him as of men brushing hurriedly 

 through the long dry grass, but when he 

 looks round he shall only see the distant 

 trees with the cows under them, and perhaps 

 a plover or two wheeling across the cloud- 

 flecked blue. Nevertheless there are men 

 hurrying to and fro under the noonday sun, 

 men whose footsteps can be heard but whose 

 feet cannot be seen. There was a great 

 battle fought here ages ago, before ever the 



