e with the law the rest subscribe the fine.
They are full of knowledge of a certain sort, and you may learn
anything, from the best way to hang a dog upwards.

When we reach the inn, and Dickon calls for the brown brandy, there in
the bar sits a gamekeeper, whose rubicund countenance beams with good
humour. He is never called upon to pay his score. Good fellow! in
addition he is popular, and every one asks him to drink: besides which,
a tip for a race now and then makes this world wear a smiling aspect to
him.

Dickon's 'unconscious education'--absorbed rather than learnt in
boyhood--had not been acquired under conditions likely to lead him to
admire scenery. But, rough as he was, he was a good-natured fellow, and
it was through him that I became acquainted with a very beautiful place.

The footpath to The Park went for about half a mile under the shadow of
elm trees, and in spring time there was a continual noise of young rooks
in the nests above. Occasionally dead twigs, either dislodged from the
nests or broken off by the motions of the old birds, came rustling down.
One or two nests that had been blown out strewed the sward with half a
bushel of dead sticks. After the rookery the path passed a lonely dairy,
where the polished brazen vessels in the skilling glittered like gold in
the sunshine. Farther on came wide open meadows with numerous oak-trees
scattered in the midst--the outposts of the great wood at hand. The elms
were flourishing and vigorous; but these detached oaks were decaying,
and some dead, their hoar antiquity contrasting with the green grass and
flowers of the mead.

The mansion was hidden by elm and chestnut, pines and sombre cedars.
From the edge of the lawn the steep slope of the Down rose, planted with
all manner of shrubs, the walks through which were inches deep in dead
leaves, needles, and fir-cones. Long neglect had permitted these to
accumulate, and the yew hedges had almost grown together and covered the
walk they bordered.

The woods and preserves extended along the Downs, between the hills and
the meadows beneath. There was one path through these woods that led
into a narrow steep-sided coombe, one side of which was planted with
firs. On the other was a little grass, but so thin as scarcely to cover
the chalk. This side jutted out from the general line of the hills, and
formed a bold bluff, whose white precipitous cliff was a landmark for
many miles. In climbing the coombe, it was so