178 ON SURREY HILLS. 



The woods on either side of the narrow road are 

 old ; trees have fallen, others are falling : young ones 

 have sprung up unheeded and untended. To one 

 accustomed to woods and woodcraft this tells its 

 own tale. We are travelling through wild country, 

 though as yet only on its borders. Presently a 

 chimney-stack shows in a copse off the roadside, 

 and, as we pass it, we find it belongs to a very old 

 but substantially built cottage. What strikes us 

 most about it is the narrowness of the window- 

 casements. So very small are they that you might 

 almost fancy the folks had feared to admit the 

 blessed air and sunshine — of which they could have 

 had little, indeed, in any case — surrounded as the 

 place is by the dank air from the old trees. The 

 woods and thickets, including the undergrowth, are 

 so thick that at mid-day an unwholesome moisture 

 reeks and broods over all. The lead -lights that 

 originally filled those openings have been replaced 

 with cast-iron ones as small as the ones that were 

 first fixed there. At some remote date these have 

 been painted white, and they seem wholly out of 

 keeping with the old place— disturbing the fitness 

 of things. They look now like skeletons hung about. 



