154 FIELD AND HEDGEROW, 
the mind of the town. No sooner has a man made a 
little money in the city, than away he rushes to the 
ficlds and rivers, and nothing would so deeply hurt the 
pride of the zouveaux riches as to insinuate that he was 
not quite fully imbued with the spirit and the knowledge 
of the country. If you told him he was ignorant of 
books he might take that as a compliment; if you sug- 
gested in a sidelong way that he did not understand 
horses he would never more be friends with you again. 
Nothing has died out, but everything has grown 
stronger that appertains to the land. Heraldry, for 
instance, and genealogy, county history—people don’t | 
want to be sheriffs row, but they would very much like 
to be able to say one of their ancestors was sheriff so 
many centuries ago. The old crests, the old coats of 
arms, are more thought of than ever; every fragment 
of antiquity valued. Almost everything old is of the 
country, either of the mansion or of the cottage; old 
silver plate, and old china, and works of the old masters in 
the one, old books, old furniture, old clocks in the other. 
The sweet violets bloom afresh every spring on the 
mounds, the cowslips come, and the happy note of the 
cuckoo, the wild rose of midsummer, and the golden 
wheat of August. It is the same beautiful old country 
always new. Neither the iron engine nor the wooden 
plough alter it one iota, and the love of it rises as con- 
stantly in our hearts as the coming of ‘the leaves. The 
wheat as it is moved from field to field, like a quarto 
folded four times, gives us in the mere rotation of crops 
a fresh garden every year. You have scented the bean- 
field and seen the slender heads of barley droop. The 
useful products of the field are themselves beautiful ; the 
sainfoin, the blue lucerne, the blood-red trifolium, the 
clear yellow of the mustard, give more definite colours, 
