90 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
road ; a gentleman’s house was within stone’s throw; 
the spot, like the man, was altogether the reverse of 
what we read in ancient story. Yet such is the force of 
association that I could not even now divest myself of 
those dim memories and living dreams of old; there 
seemed as it were the clank of armour, a rustle of 
pennons in the leaves; it would have been quite natural 
to hold bow and arrow in the hand. The man was 
modern, but his office was ancient. The descent was un- 
broken. The charcoal-burner traced back to the Norman 
Conquest. That very spot where we stood, now sur- 
rounded with meadows and near dwellings, scarcely 
thirty years since had formed part of one of the largest 
of the old forests. It was forest land. Woods away 
on the slope still remained to witness to traditions. As 
the charcoal-burner worked beside the modern highway, 
so his trade had come down and was still practised in 
the midst of modern trades, in these times of sea-coal 
and steam. He told me that he and his brothers were 
maintained by charcoal-burning the year through, and, 
it appeared, in a very comfortable position, They only 
burned a small quantity here; they moved about from 
place to place in the woods, according as the timber 
wasthrown. They often stopped for weeks in the woods, 
watching the fires all night. A great part of the work 
was done in the winter, beginning in October—after the 
hop-picking. Now resting in his lonely hut, now walk- 
ing round and tending the smoking heap, the charcoalé 
burner watched out the long winter nights while the 
stars drifted over the leafless trees, till the grey dawn 
came with hoar-frost. He liked his office, but owned 
that the winter nights were very long. Starlight and 
frost and slow time are the same now as when the red 
deer and the wild boar dwelt in the forest. Much of 
