322 FIELD AND HEDGEROW. 
scale, yet it was perfectly accurate and full of detail. I 
wish I could find it, but the confusion of time has scat- 
tered and mixed these early papers. A map by Ptolemy 
would bear as much resemblance to the same country in 
a modern atlas as mine to the present state of that local- 
ity. It is allgone—rubbed out. The names against the 
whole of those houses have been altered, one only ex- 
cepted, and changes have taken place there. Nothing 
remains, This is not in a century, half a century, or 
even in a quarter of a century, but in a few ticks of the 
clock, 
I think I have heard that the oaks are down. They 
may be standing or down, it matters nothing to me ; the 
leaves I last saw upon them are gone for evermore, nor 
shall I ever see them come there again ruddy in spring. 
I would not see them again even if I could ; they could 
never look again as they used todo. There are too many 
memories there. The happiest days become the saddest 
afterwards ; let us never go back, lest we too die. There 
are no such oaks anywhere else, none so tall and straight, 
and with such massive heads, on which the sun used to 
shine as if on the globe of the earth, one side in shadow, 
the other in bright light. How often I have looked at 
oaks since, and yet have never been able to get the same 
effect from them! Like an old author printed in another 
type, the words are the same, but the sentiment is differ- 
ent. The brooks have ceased to run. Thereis no music 
now at the old hatch where we used to sit in danger of 
our lives, happy as kings, on the narrow bar over the 
deep water. The barred pike that used to come up in 
such numbers are no more among the flags. The perch 
used to drift down the stream, and then bring up again. 
The sun shone there for a very long time, and the water 
rippled and sang, and it always seemed to me that I 
