Round About a Great Estate

ure box-hedge. The thrushes were always searching about in this box, which was hardly high enough to hide them, for the snails which they found there. They broke the sh

down that they might come variegated. The earliest violet was gathered there, for the corner was enclosed on three sides, and somehow the sunshine fell more genially in that untrimmed spot than in formal gardens where it is courted. Against the house a pear was t

lums: upon shaking the tree, one or two came down with a thud. The branches of the damsons depended so low, looking, as it were, right into the court and pressing the fruit against your very face as you entered, that you could not choose but take some when it was ripe.

hat Popp?a learned to bathe in milk, for Cicely's arms shone white and smooth, with the gleam of a perfect skin. But Mrs. Luckett would never let her touch the salt, which will ruin the hands. Cicely, however, who would do something, turned the cheeses in the chee

t of the turn, when the weight must have been felt, there was n

s some rock's va

we watched Cicely one morning, said people's taste have much altered; for she understood they were now fond of a foreign sort that was full of holes. The old say

e birds were flying towards Hilary. Though rude in design the scene was true to nature and the times: from the buttons on the coat to the long barrel of the gun, the details were accurate and no

dred years ago. On the ancient Grecian pottery, too, the hunter with his spear chases the boar or urges his hounds after the flying deer; the women are dancing, and you can almost hear the notes of the flute. These things were part of their daily life; these are no imaginary pictures of imaginary and impossible scenes: they are simply scenes in which every one then took part. So I think that the ol

pasture field of his which it was believed had been grazed for fully two hundred years. When he was a boy, the cheese folk made to keep at home for eating often became so hard that, unable to cut it, they were obliged to use a saw. Still longer ago, they used to d

ll regret the amendments in the modern issue, and would have back again the table which laid down when the influence of the constellations was concentrated in each particular limb and portion of the body. In his oaken cabinet Hilary had 'Moore' from the beginnin

the constellations rising in succession one after the other, and felt the slight variations of the wind and of moisture or dryness in the air which predict the sunshine or the shower of the coming day. He seemed to have thought a good deal in those lonely watches; but he passed it off by referring to the malting. Barn barley was best for malting-i.e. that which had been sto

when it had turned quite white the oven was ready. The wood embers were raked out with the scraper, and the malkin, being wetted, cleaned out the ashes. 'Thee looks like a gurt malkin' is a common term of reproach among the poor folk-meaning a bunch of rags on the end of a stick. We went out to look at the oven; and then Mrs. Luckett made me taste her black-currant gin, which

e No

ly but animals also are affected by the absence of sun, so that the epicure should hope as devoutly as the farmer that the dull and overcast season of 1879 will not be repeated. Hilary's rema

m seed. Last year all the farmers had been Latter Lammas men. The 1st of August is Lammas Day; and in the old time if a farmer had neglected his work and his haymaking was still unfinished on August 13 (i.e.

eat and hardly knew where to put it. Such a harvest was as if a man had gone round his farm with the sun in one hand and the watering-pot in the other! Last year there had been nearly as much mathern (wild camomile)

rm is the milking: one summer his fogger declared it came on to thunder day after day in the afternoon just as he took his yoke off his shoulders. Such heavy and continuous downpour not only laid the crops, but might spoil them altogether; fo

l is a favourite crop for sheep, but Hilary said it was too soft for horses. The poppies were not yet out in the wheat. When in full bloom some of the cottagers gather the scarlet flowers in great quantities and from them make poppy wine. This liquor has a fine colou

ep one by one with a keen knife. They had got the foot-rot down in a meadow-they do not suffer from it on the arable uplands where folded-and t

bell went forth to gather honeysuckle and lady's-smock nearly three

on his broa

,

is sheepe a

ld whistle

guides and encourages

that it was occasionally necessary to break their teeth that they might not injure the sheep. From his description the dogs at the present day must be far superior; indeed, there seems to have been no variety of dog and no purity of breed at that time (in that neighbourhood); meaning, of course, outside the gamekeeper's kennels, or the hounds used for hunting. Shepherds like to keep their flock

-world vocabulary of their own, saying 'toward' for anything near or leaning towards you, and 'vrammards' for the reverse. 'Heeld' or 'yeeld,' again, is ploughman's language; when the newly sown corn does not 'heeld' or 'yeeld' it requires the harrow. In the next field, which

e No

it, and so cause holes; and, in fact, some of the slate that was brought up did decay and become useless. But that was, of course, an inferior kind, quite different to what is now employed. In so comparatively short a period has everything-even the mode of roofing-changed that the introduction of slates is still in many places within the memor

cks well, with a strong vine, then it would be a capital hop-year. On the contrary, if they were weak and poor, the hops would prove a failure. Thus the on

art-horse belonging to a neighbouring farmer had met with an accident and had to be killed, when, according to old custom, portions were sent round t