Atokward Stiles. 107 



old ship outlasts its owner — his name on it is painted 

 out. But that step is not taken for yeai's : there 

 seems to be a superstitious dislike to obliterating the 

 old name, as if tlie dead would resent it, and there it 

 often remains till it becomes illegible. Sometimes the 

 second owner, too, goes, and the name fresh painted 

 is that of the third. When at last it becomes too 

 shaky for farm use, it is perhaps bought by some 

 poor working haulier, who has a hole cut in the 

 bottom with movable cover, and uses it to bring 

 down flints from the hills to mend the roads. But if 

 any of the old folk live, they will not sell the ancient 

 vessel : it stands behind the rickyard under the 

 elms till the rain rots the upper work, and it is then 

 broken up, and the axletree becomes the top bar of a 

 stile. 



Each field has its characteristic stile — or rather 

 two, one each side (at the entrance and exit of the 

 footpath) , and these are never alike. Walking across 

 the fields for a couple of miles or more, of all the 

 stiles that must of necessity be surmounted no two 

 are similar. Here is one well put together — not too 

 high, the rail not too large, and apparently an ideal 

 piece of workmanship ; but on approaching, the 

 ground on the opposite side drops suddenly three or 

 four feet — at the bottom is a marshy spot crossed by 

 a narrow bridge of a single stone, on which you have 

 to be careful to alight, or else plunge ankle-deep in 

 water. If clever enough to drop on the stone, it 

 immediately tilts up shghtl}^, for, like the rocking- 

 stones of Wales, it is balanced somewhere, and has 

 a see-saw motion well calculated to land the timid in 

 the ditch. 



