214 THE SOUTH COUNTRY 



Suddenly there is a village of thatched roofs, phlox in 

 the gardens, good spaces of green and of sycamore-trees 

 between one house and the next, and a green-weeded 

 crystal river pervading all with its flash and sound. The 

 anvil rings and the fire glows in the black smithy. The 

 wheel-wright's timber leans outside his thatched shed 

 against an ancient elder, etherealized by lucent yellow 

 leaves. Before the inn a jolly ostler with bow legs and 

 purple neck washes the wheels of a cart, ever and anon 

 filling his pail from the stream and swishing the bright 

 water over the wheels as they spin. A decent white- 

 haired old man stands and watches, leaning on his stick 

 held almost at arm's length so as to make an archway 

 underneath which a spaniel sprawls in the sun. The 

 men are all at the corn and he does not know what to do. 

 Can he read? asks the ostler, knowing the answer very 

 well. No! We all read now, chuckles the ostler as he 

 flings a pailful over the wheel. The old man is proud 

 at least to have lived into such a notable day : " Yes, 

 man reads now almost as well as master — quite as well. 

 They used to be dummies, the working class people, yes, 

 that they was. You can't tell what will happen now." 

 Meantime the ostler fills his pail and the old man having 

 too many thoughts to say any more, lays his blackthorn 

 on the bench and calls for his glass of fourpenny ale. 



Close by there is an entrance to the more open Downs. 

 The uncut hedges are so thick that the lane seems a 

 cutting through a wood, and soon it becomes a grassy 

 track of great breadth under ash-trees and amidst purple 

 dogwood and crimson-hearted traveller's-joy, and finally 

 it is a long broad field full of wild carrot and scabious 

 through which many paths meander side by side until the 



