1 82 ON SURREY HILLS. 



We look over the wall from the bank rising opposite 

 to it, and sweep the wide park with our field-glass ; 

 but time will not allow us to stay here. I know the 

 place by tradition only ; it is a part of this district 

 that I have never taken kindly to for reasons of my 

 own. 



There is a degree of crass ignorance and uncouth- 

 ness about the rustic inhabitants of some localities 

 that must be seen and heard to be properly appre- 

 ciated, and to understand which one must go back 

 into obscure questions of heredity and local history. 

 The folks about here, the real natives of the soil, 

 call the particular class I am writing about "furze- 

 croppers " and " broom-dashers " ; and there is no love 

 lost between the two. 



As they and their surroundings do not interest us, 

 we travel on. Great fields, higher than the road that 

 runs through them, stretch right and left — broken now 

 and again by woods, trees, and hedgerows — away 

 into the far distance. One can see the lonely farm- 

 steads and mansions dotted here and there. There is 

 barely time to sweep the vast open plain with our 

 glass from end to end, for a resting-place must be 

 found for the night. It is already afternoon, and a 



