66 THE GAMEKEEPER AT HOME. 



skeletons, close beneath the surface, and in their confused 

 arrangement presenting every sign of hasty interment, as 

 if after battle. Since then the keeper avoids the spot ; 

 nor will he, hardy as he is, go near it at night ; not even 

 in the summer moonlight, when the night is merely a 

 prolongation of the day. 



There is nothing unusual in such a discovery : skele- 

 tons are found in all manner of places. I recollect seeing 

 one dug out from the bank of a brook within two feet of 

 the stream. The place was perhaps in the olden time 

 covered with forest (traces of forest are to be found every- 

 where, as in the names of hamlets), and therefore more 

 concealed than at present. Or, possibly, the stream, in 

 the slow passage of centuries, may have worn its way far 

 from its original bed. 



It is strange to think of, yet it is true enough, that, 

 beautiful as the country is, with its green meadows and 

 graceful trees, its streams and forests and peaceful home- 

 steads, it would be difficult to find an acre of ground that 

 has not been stained with blood. A melancholy reflection 

 this, that carries the mind backwards, while the thrush 

 sings on the bough, through the nameless skirmishes of 

 the Civil War, the cruel assassinations of the rival Roses, 

 down to the axes of the Saxons and the ghastly wounds 

 they made. Everywhere under the flowers are the dead. 



Not this park in particular, but others as well form 

 pages of history. The keeper, in fact, can claim an 



