96 FROM SPRING TO FALL. 



ordered some of the commoners to desist from 

 cutting fern and fagot - wood, in their several 

 seasons, on land where they had been cut for 

 generations. One rash individual, who has since 

 become wiser, placed restraining hands on one of 

 the fern-cutters, and, as the latter afterwards said, 

 to his "most uttermost astonishment," he found 

 himself on his back, the astonished but not proud 

 possessor of two black eyes, as a reward of his 

 fervour. This incident led to a meeting of the 

 would-be appropriators of all common rights, to 

 protest against such very demonstrative opposi- 

 tion, and to pass measures for stopping it. 



It was stopped for them. No one ever knew 

 how it happened ; but there is now a hillside which 

 rises bare compared to what it used to be, with 

 its hollies, junipers, and furze clumps at the very 

 least a hundred years old, which were all swept 

 away by a forest-fire that carried everything before 

 it. At its furious, rolling flames, driven by the 

 wind at fearful speed, the wealthy new-comers 

 gazed in horror. 



If ever the loss of sylvan beauty, with all its 

 wealth of animal, bird, insect, and reptile life, was 



