AMONG THE HILLS. 33 



gives but a slight idea of the actual country. For 

 nearly forty years, since I left the home of my youth 

 in the North Kent marshes, I have spent the greater 

 portion of my daily life in the open air among these 

 fertile valleys and hills, so that I may fairly claim a 

 close acquaintance with the scenery of Surrey, the 

 wild creatures that inhabit it, and last, but not least, 

 the robust and kind-hearted people, the woodmen of 

 the forest-lands. 



I made my home for a time in a rambling old- 

 fashioned building, which was covered with moss and 

 lichens from the doorstep right up to the chimneys. 

 Old it was in every sense of the word, both inside 

 and out. It stood alone in a sheltered nook of the 

 moor ; and, with the exception of a ride of the softest 

 and greenest turf running the whole length of the 

 valley, it was completely shut in on both sides by 

 the firs. Beyond these lay the wild moorland ; and 

 on all sides of that the woods, the remains of a grand 

 forest which covered Surrey and Sussex in years 

 gone by. 



Some of these places were not, until a few years 

 back, visited by a strange face from one year to 

 another ; now — and more's the pity, some of us think 



C 



