A Hertfordshire Valley. 15 



entire estate and has worked wonders upon it — how Mrs. 

 Blank, in the cottage, has gathered so many bushels of 

 cherries already, and will be able to gather as many more — 

 how, coming down the hill which we are approaching, 

 Farmer Stubbs, keeping a loose rein, came to grief and 

 broke his neck — how this fine stretch of furze-covered land 

 is Chorleywood Common, famous for splendid cricket- 

 matches promoted by one of the moving spirits at Lord's, 

 who lives in the house — how, at the further extremity of 

 the common, there are the kennels of the old Berkeley 

 Hunt — how much had been given for the fleeces of the 

 sheep, which in their newly shorn condition seemed any- 

 thing but comfortable after the rain. 



There ran a stoat across the lane into the plantation, and 

 here pounced a hawk upon something fluttering over the 

 richly blossoming pea-field : now we pass a group of rustic 

 boys examining the rusty gun of a companion who is 

 neglecting his bird-keeping, or a row of old almshouses 

 suggestive of Elizabethan times, or a number of model 

 cottages with choice flower and vegetable gardens at sight 

 of which the driver launches out into loud praise of the 

 Duke of Bedford, upon whose estate we are, and who, he 

 says, lets the handsome brick houses for eighteenpence a 

 week. 



"By George ! sir," he says, touching up the mare with the 

 whip, " I should like to live there myself." And he might 

 do worse. 



Down in the valley, in a kind of sleepy hollow, sur- 

 rounded by charming scenery, but very much out of the 

 world, are Sarratt Mills, on the Chess. Descending the 

 steep lane by which the mills are reached, you have a 

 comprehensive bird's-eye view of the valley, the. woods, 

 #nd, the stream. There are trout in the Chess, and, to let 



