MY OLD VILLAGE. 321 
have been dropping away. The strong young man who 
used to fill us with such astonishment at the feats he 
would achieve without a thought, no gymnastic training, 
to whom a sack of wheat was a toy. The strong young 
man went one day into the harvest-field, as he had done 
so many times before. Suddenly he felt a little dizzy. 
By-and-by he went home and became very ill with 
.sunstroke ; he recovered, but he was never strong again; 
he gradually declined for twelve months, and next 
harvest-time he was under the daisies. Just one little 
touch of the sun, and the strength of man faded as a 
leaf. The hardy dark young man, built of iron, broad, 
thick, and short, who looked as if frost, snow, and heat 
were all the same to him, had something go wrong in 
his lung: one twelvemonth, and there was an end. 
This was a very unhappy affair. The pickaxe and the 
spade have made almost a full round to every door; I 
do not want to think any more about this. Family 
changes and the pressure of these hard times have 
driven out most of the rest ; some seem to have quite 
gone out of sight; some have crossed the sea; some 
have abandoned the land as a livelihood. Of the few, 
the very few that still remain, still fewer abide in their 
original homes. Time has shuffled them about from 
house to house like a pack of cards. Of them all, I 
verily believe there is but one soul living in the same 
old house. If the French had landed in the medieval 
way to harry with fire and sword, they could not have 
swept the place more clean. 
Almost the first thing I did with pen and ink as a 
boy was to draw a map of the hamlet with the roads and 
‘ lanes and paths, and I think some of the ponds, and 
with each of the houses marked and the occupier’s name, 
Of course it was very roughly done, and not to any 
Y 
