er and keeps up the pace for miles without exertion. The
watercress is a great staple, because it lasts for so many months.
Seeing the nimble way in which he gathers it, thrusting aside the
brook-lime, breaking off the coarser sprays, snipping away pieces of
root, sorting and washing, and thinking of the amount of work to be got
through before a shilling is earned, one would imagine that the slow,
idling life of the labourer, with his regular wages, would be far more
enticing.

Near the stream the ground is perhaps peaty: little black pools appear
between tufts of grass, some of them streaked with a reddish or
yellowish slime that glistens on the surface of the dark water; and as
you step there is a hissing sound as the spongy earth yields, and a tiny
spout is forced forth several yards distant. Some of the drier part of
the soil the moucher takes to sell for use in gardens and flower-pots as
peat.

The years roll on, and he grows old. But no feebleness of body or mind
can induce him to enter the workhouse; he cannot quit his old haunts.
Let it rain or sleet, or let the furious gale drive broken boughs across
the road, he still sleeps in some shed or under a straw-rick. In sheer
pity he is committed every now and then to prison for vagabondage--not
for punishment, but in order to save him from himself. It is in vain:
the moment he is out he returns to his habits. All he wants is a little
beer--he is not a drunkard--and a little tobacco, and the hedges. Some
chilly evening, as the shadows thicken, he shambles out of the town, and
seeks the limekiln in the ploughed field, where, the substratum being
limestone, the farmer burns it. Near the top of the kiln the ground is
warm; there he reclines and sleeps.

The night goes on. Out from the broken blocks of stone now and again
there rises a lambent flame, to shine like a meteor for a moment and
then disappear. The rain falls. The moucher moves uneasily in his sleep;
instinctively he rolls or crawls towards the warmth, and presently lies
extended on the top of the kiln. The wings of the water-fowl hurtle in
the air as they go over; by-and-by the heron utters his loud call.

Very early in the morning the quarryman comes to tend his fire, and
starts to see on the now redhot and glowing stones, sunk below the rim,
the presentment of a skeleton formed of the purest white ashes--a
ghastly spectacle in the grey of the dawn, as the mist rises and the
peewit plaintively whistles o