the living
creatures that haunt it. But then one might begin to write a book
about a hedgerow when a boy and find it incomplete in old age.

A much-neglected path led from the park through some fir plantations
down to the fishpond. After the first turn of the narrow track the
close foliage of the firs, through which nothing could be seen, shut
out the world with green walls. The strip of blue sky visible above
was wider than the path, because the trees sloped away somewhat, their
branches shortening towards the top; still it was so contracted that a
passing woodpigeon was seen but for a second as he went over. Every
step carried me into deeper silence--the sudden call of a jay was
startling in its harsh contrast. Presently the path widened where the
thickly planted firs were succeeded by sycamores, horse-chestnuts,
alders, and aspen--trees which stand farther apart, and beneath which
some underwood grew. Here there were thickets of hawthorn and bramble
and elder bushes which can find no place among firs.

The ground now sloped rapidly down into a hollow, and upon this
descent numbers of skeleton leaves were scattered. There was no other
spot all over the Chace where they could be seen like this; you might
walk for hours and not find one, yet here there were hundreds.
Sometimes they covered the ground in layers, several leaves one on the
other. In spring violets pushed up through them and blue-bells--sweet
hope rising over grey decay.

Lower down a large pond almost filled the hollow. It was surrounded on
three sides by trees and thickets; on the fourth an irregular margin
of marshy grass extended. Floating leaves of weeds covered the surface
of the water; these weeds had not been disturbed for years, and there
was no check to their growth except their own profusion, for they
choked each other. The pond had long ceased to supply fish for the
table. Before railways brought the sea so near, such ponds were very
useful. At that time almost everything consumed came from the estate
itself: the bread, the beef, the mutton, the venison, game, fish, all
was supplied by the adjacent woods, the fields, or the water. The lord
in old days hunted the deer on his own domain, brought down game with
a crossbow or captured it with nets, and fished or netted his own
streams and ponds. These great parks and chaces enclosed everything,
so that it was within easy reach of his own door. Sometimes the lord
and his visitors strolled out to s