A Shepherd's Life

ruit-The winterbourne-Human interest-The home feeling-Man in harmony wit

winds of this high country, from whichever quarter they may blow. Placed high itself on a wide, unwooded valley or depression, with the low, sloping downs at some distance away, the village is about as cold a place to pass a winter in as one could find in this district. And, it may be added, the most inconvenient to live in at any time, the nearest town, or the easie

poor man, is very poor. Just in the middle part, where the church stands in its green churchyard, the shadiest spot in the village, a few of the cottages are close together, almost touching, then farther apart, twenty yards or so, then farther still, forty or fifty yards. They are small, old cottages; a few have seventeenth-century dates cut on stone tablets on their fronts, but the undated ones look equally old; some thatch

or two, old but not large; and there are small or dwarf yew-, holly-, and thorn-trees. Very little fruit is grown; two or three to half a dozen apple- and damson-trees are called an orchard, and one is sorry for the children. But in late summer and autumn they get their fruit from the hedges. These ru

; then the water finds its way out and fills the dry old channel and sometimes turns the whole street into a rushing river, to the immense joy of the village children. They are like ducks, hatched and reared at some upland farm where there was not even a muddy pool to dibble in. For a season (the wet one) the village women have water at their own doors and can go out and dip pails in it as often as they want. When spring comes it is still flowing merrily, trying to make you believe that it is going to flow for ever; beautiful, green water-loving plants and grasses spring up and flourish along the roadside, and you may see comfrey and water forget-me-not in flower. Pools, too, have been formed in some deep, hollow places; they are fringed with tall grasses, whitened over with bloom of water-crowfoot, and poa grass grows up from the bottom to spread its green tresses over the surface. Better still, by and by a couple of stray moorhens make their appearance in the pool-strange birds, coloured glossy olive

ny of his anecdotes and reflections proved so interesting that I fell into the habit of putting them down in my notebook; until in the end the place itself, where he had followed his "homely trade" so long, seeing and feeling so much, drew me to it. I knew there was "nothing to see" in it, that it was without the usual attractions; that there was, in fact, nothing but the human interest, but that was enough. So I came to it to satisfy an idle curiosity-just to see how it would accord with the mental picture produced by his description of it. I came, I may say, prepared to like the place for the sole but sufficient reason that it had been his home. Had it not been for this feeling he had produced in me I should not, I imagine, have cared to stay long in it. As it was, I did stay, then came again and found that it was growing on me. I wondered why; for the mere interest in

le higher still stood on the top of one of its many barrows, a sight of the distant village, its low, grey or reddish-brown cottages half hidden among its few trees, the square, stone tower of its little church looking at a distance no talle

a pleasure to leave Salisbury behind and set out on that long, hilly road, and the feeling would keep with me all the journey, even in bad weather, sultry or cold, or with the wind hard against me, blowing the white chalk dust into my eyes. From the time I left the turnpike to go the last two and a half to three miles by the side-road I would gaze eagerly ahead for a s

sses that hold me, the spirit of the place, one which is not a desert with the desert's melancholy or sense of desolation, but inhabited, although thinly and by humble-minded men whose work and dwellings are unobtrusive. The final effect of this wide, green space with signs of human life and labour on it, and sight of a

ony and oneness with nature. From how much of England has this expression which nature has for the spirit, which is so much more to us than beauty of scenery, been blotted out! This quiet spot in Wiltshire has been inhabited from

every day after that the number increased until it seemed to me that he had brought out the entire skeleton, minus the skull, which I had been curious to see. Then the bones disappeared. The man who looked after the game had seen them, and recognizing that they were human remains had judiciously taken them away to destroy or stow them away in some safe place. For if the village constable had discovered them, or heard of their presence, he would perhaps have made a fuss and even thought it necessary t

let us say? There were two barrows in that part of the down, but quite a stone's-throw away from the spot where the rabbit was working, so that he may not have been one of the people of that period. Still, it is probable that he was buried a very long time ago, centuries back, perhaps a

not be strange to him. It was doubtless there as far back as history goes and probably still farther back in time. For at that point, just where the winterbourne gushes out from the low hills, is the spot man would naturally select to make his home. And he would see no mansion or big building, no puff of white steam and sight of a long, black train creeping over the