WAY-SIDE HINTS. 141 



ever very nicely kept. The geese cropped the grass 

 short, to be sure ; but a goose is not a tidy animal ; 

 the pool, too if any pondlet of water broke the 

 surface of the level was apt to show the stamp of 

 adventurous hoofs and a muddy margin ; for all this, 

 however, such eyelets of green space in the centre of 

 country towns, around which and upon which all the 

 gayety and cheer of the settlement might disport 

 itself, were very charming. I do not know but I 

 would rejoice to see the village stocks brought into 

 use again, for the sake of the broad common where 

 they stood : certain it is, that if they were ever ser- 

 viceable (I speak of the stocks), they would be ser- 

 viceable now. I think I could mention sundry indi- 

 viduals not all of them editors who would look 

 well sitting in the stocks. And as for the whip- 

 ping-posts, who would not rejoice to see their 

 revival, provided only he could name the mar- 

 tyrs? 



But I have no right to speak of the Village Green 

 as wholly a thing of the past, although such symbols 

 of order and discipline as the stocks and the whip- 

 ping-post have gone by. 



Travellers rarely meet with them, it is true ; but 

 we do not travel by stage-coach nowadays. We do 

 not face the old orderly frontage of quiet, outlying 

 towns, as we did when we clattered down the main 



