r he walks
upon the macadamised strip dryshod, and in summer upon either of the
grass strips, easily and comfortably, without going out into the
mowing-grass to have the pleasure of turf under his feet.

These deep furrows are also awkward to cross with heavy loads of hay or
straw, and it requires much skill to build a load able to withstand the
severe jolting and lurching. Some of the worst are often filled up with
a couple of large faggots in the harvest season. These tracks run by the
side of the hedge, and the ditches are crossed by bridges or "drocks."
The last gate opens into a small field surrounded with a high thick
hawthorn hedge, itself a thing of beauty in May and June, first with the
May blossom and afterwards with the delicate-tinted dog or wild roses. A
spreading ash-tree stands on either side of the gateway, from which on
King Charles's day the ploughboys carefully select small branches, those
with the leaves evenly arranged, instead of odd numbers, to place in
their hats. Tall elm-trees grow close together in the hedge and upon the
"shore" of the ditch, enclosing the place in a high wall of foliage. In
the branches are the rooks' nests, built of small twigs apparently
thrown together, and yet so firmly intertwined as to stand the swaying
of the tree-tops in the rough blasts of winter. In the spring the rook
builds a second nest on the floor of the old one, and this continues
till five or six successive layers may be traced; and when at last some
ruder tempest strews the grass with its ruin, there is enough wood to
fill a bushel basket.

The dovecot is fixed in the fork of one of the larger elms, where the
trunk divides into huge boughs, each the size of a tree; and in the long
rank grass near the hedge the backs of a black Berkshire pig or two may
be seen like porpoises rolling in the green sea. Here and there an
ancient apple-tree, bent down and bowed to the ground with age, offers a
mossy, shady seat upon one of its branches which has returned to the
earth from which it sprung. Some wooden posts grown green and
lichen-covered, standing at regular intervals, show where the housewife
dries her linen. Right before the very door a great horse-chestnut tree
rears itself in all the beauty of its thousands of blossoms, hiding half
the house. A small patch of ground in front is railed in with wooden
palings to keep out the pigs, and poultry, and dogs--for almost every
visitor brings with him one or more dogs-