296 FIELD -AND HEDGEROW. 
could shoot with safety. As for the squire, he did not 
approve of rifles. He adhered to his double-barrel ; and 
if a buck had to be killed, he depended on his smooth- 
bore to carry a heavy ball forty yards with fair accuracy. 
The fawns were knocked over with a wire cartridge 
unless Mr. Martin was in the way—he liked to try a 
rifle. Even in summer the old squire generally had his 
double-barrel with him—perhaps he might come across 
a weasel, or a stoat, or a crow. That was his excuse ; 
but, in fact, without a gun the woods lost half their 
-meaning to him. With it he could stand and watch 
the buck grazing in the glade, or a troop of fawns— 
sweet little creatures—so demurely feeding down the 
grassy slope from the beeches. Already at midsummer 
the nuts were full formed on the beeches ; the green 
figs, too, he remembered were on the old fig-iree trained 
against the warm garden wall. The _ horse-chestnuts 
showed the little green knobs which would soon enlarge 
and hang all prickly, like the spiked balls of a holy- 
water sprinkle, such as was once used in the wars. Of 
old the folk, having no books, watched every living 
thing, from the moss to the oak, from the mouse to the 
deer ; and all that we know now of animals and plants 
is really founded upon their acute and patient observa- 
tion. How many years it took even to find out a good 
salad may be seen from ancient writings, wherein half 
the plants about the hedges are recommended as salad 
herbs: dire indeed would be our consternatior if we had 
toeat them As the beech-nuts appear, and the horse- 
chestnuts enlarge, and the fig swells, the apples turn red 
and become visible in the leafy branches of the apple- 
trees. Like horses, deer are fond of apples, and in 
former times, when deer-stealing was possible, they were 
often decoyed with them. 
