e hour and the sweet pure air of the Downs supply fresh strength. The
little lad brings the mare anywhere: through the furze, among the
flint-pits, jolting over the ruts, she rattles along with sure alacrity.
There are five hares in the sack under the straw when at last we get up
and slowly drive down to the highway, reaching it some two miles from
where we left it. Dickon sends the dogs home by the boy on foot; we
drive round and return to the village by a different route, entering it
from the opposite direction.

The reason of these things is that Sarsen has no great landlord. There
are fifty small proprietors, and not a single resident magistrate.
Besides the small farmers, there are scores of cottage owners, every one
of whom is perfectly independent. Nobody cares for anybody. It is a
republic, without even the semblance of a Government. It is liberty,
equality, and swearing. As it is just within the limit of a borough,
almost all the cottagers have votes, and are not to be trifled with. The
proximity of horse-racing establishments adds to the general atmosphere
of dissipation. Betting, card-playing, ferret-breeding and dog-fancying,
poaching and politics, are the occupations of the populace. A little
illicit badger-baiting is varied by a little vicar-baiting; the mass of
the inhabitants are the reddest of Reds. Que voulez-vous?

The edges of some large estates come up near, but the owners would
hardly like to institute a persecution of these turbulent folk. If they
did, where would be their influence at the next election? If a landlord
makes himself unpopular, his own personal value depreciates. He is a
nonentity in the committee-room, and his help rather deprecated by the
party than desired. The Sarsen fellows are not such fools as to break
pheasant preserves in the vale; as they are resident, that would not
answer. They keep outside the _sanctum sanctorum_ of the pheasant
coverts. But with ferret, dog, and gun, and now and then a partridge net
along the edge of the standing barley, they excel. So, too, with the
wire; and the broad open Downs are their happy hunting grounds,
especially in misty weather.

This is the village of the apple-bloom, the loveliest spot imaginable.
After all, they are not such desperately bad fellows if you deduct their
sins against the game laws. They are a jovial lot, and free with their
money; they stand by one another--a great virtue in these cold-blooded
days. If one gets in troubl