RAMBLES ABOUT NEWMARKET 219 



(many a bait have I had there, and my friends 

 the wasters too), but had come out a-purpose to 

 just loaf and Hsten to the birds, notably the 

 nightingale, whose notes just now are so remark- 

 ably like some of the thrush's that you don't care 

 to bet you know t'other from which, unless you 

 can locate the level of the song ; also to the 

 sheep and lambs' nursery conversation, and have 

 a word or two with friendly wayfarers, who talked 

 of what happened in the rain two or three miles 

 off, as a Londoner might of earthquakes in Java 

 or forest fires in Canada. 



The Dalham district makes another very 

 charming field for excursion in summer. You 

 do get some beautiful country over that way. 

 Fond indeed I am of this remarkably picturesque 

 rustic hamlet, its church and churchyard, the 

 sort which, beholding, you can swear has a big 

 house or place adjacent ; sweet are its hill roads 

 lined with ivy-grown trees of various stems and 

 crowns, as, for example, ash, maple, holly, with 

 hedges clouded over with English clematis, 

 traveller's joy, or old man's beard ; the beautiful 

 avenues, and, most interesting of all, the grave- 

 yard records. Lanes you have like to the deep, 

 much water-worn packhorse ways you find in 

 Surrey and Sussex, and all the typical plants 

 and flowering shrubs peculiar to chalky lands. 

 To me a much greater treat cannot be had than 

 to walk by the side of the brook or bourne to 

 which locals are shy of giving a name, to Moulton, 

 where the good folk call it the Kennet — a puny, 

 deserted waterway track in dry weather, but of 

 consequence in flood, as high arched flint bridges 

 of remote date testify. Cool and refreshing to 

 the ear is the trickle-tinkle of the streamlet, to 



