the cloud is not black--it lacks several shades of that--there
is in it a faint and yet decided tint of blue. This tone of blue is not
the same everywhere--here it is almost distinct, there it fades; it is an
aerial colour which rather hints itself than shows. Commencing the descent
the view is at once lost, but we pass a beech whose beauty is not easily
conveyed. The winds have scarcely rifled it; being in a sheltered spot on
the slope, the leaves are nearly perfect. All those on the outer boughs
are a rich brown--some, perhaps, almost orange. But there is an inner mass
of branches of lesser size which droop downwards, something after the
manner of a weeping willow; and the leaves on these are still green and
show through. Upon the whole tree a flood of sunshine pours, and over it
is the azure sky. The mingling, shading, and contrast of these colours
give a lovely result--the tree is aglow, its foliage ripe with colour.

Farther down comes the steady sound of deliberate blows, and the upper
branches of the hedge falls beneath the steel. A sturdy labourer, with a
bill on a pole, strikes slow and strong and cuts down the hedge to an even
height. A dreadful weapon that simple tool must have been in the old days
before the advent of the arquebus. For with the exception of the spike,
which is not needed for hedge work, it is almost an exact copy of the
brown bill of ancient warfare; it is brown still, except where sharpened.
Wielded by a sinewy arm, what, gaping gashes it must have slit through
helm and mail and severed bone! Watch the man there--he slices off the
tough thorn as though it were straw. He notes not the beauty of the beech
above him, nor the sun, nor the sky; but on the other hand, when the sky
is hidden, the sun gone, and the beautiful beech torn by the raving winds
neither does he heed that. Rain and tempest affect him not; the glaring
heat of summer, the bitter frost of winter are alike to him. He is built
up like an oak. Believe it, the man that from his boyhood has stood
ankle-deep in the chill water of the ditch, patiently labouring with axe
and bill; who has trudged across the furrow, hand on plough, facing sleet
and mist; who has swung the sickle under the summer sun--this is the man
for the trenches. This is the man whom neither the snows of the North nor
the sun of the South can vanquish; who will dig and delve, and carry
traverse and covered way forward in the face of the fortress, who will lie
on the