Firs and Poplars 55 



CHAPTER IV. 



THE VILLAGE — THE WASHPOOL — VILLAGE nTDTTSTEIES — THE 

 BELFRY — JACKDAWS — TILLAGE CHRONICLES. 



A short distance below the cottagers' ' dipping-place ' 

 just mentioned, the same stream, leaving the deep groove 

 or gully, widens suddenly into a large clear pool, shaded 

 by two tall fir trees and an equally tall poplar. The tops 

 of these trees are nearly level with the plain above the 

 verdant valley in which the stream flows, and, being side 

 by side, the difference in the manner of their growth is 

 strongly contrasted. The branches of the fir gracefully 

 depend, as if weighted downwards by the burden of the 

 heavy deep green fringe they carry — a fringe tipped with 

 bullion in the spring, for the young shoots are of so light 

 a green as to shade into a pale yellow. The branches of 

 the poplar, on the contrary, point upwards— growing nearly 

 vertically ; so that the outline of the tree resembles the 

 tip of an immensely exaggerated artist's brush. This 

 formation is ill adapted for nest-building, as it affords 

 little or no surface to build on, and so the poplar is but 

 seldom used by birds. 



The pool beneath is approached by a broad track — it 

 cannot be called road — trampled into innumerable small 

 holes by the feet of flocks of sheep, driven down here from 

 the hills for the periodical washing. At that time the 

 roads are full of sheep day after day, all tending in the 



