might have come out of _Edgeworth's Parent's
Assistant_ when Simple Susan's pet lamb was in the same evil case. From
the cart descended a butcher, who shook his head when questioned by the
lamb's caretaker, or keeper, who looked after its owner's interests from
a neighbouring dwelling. Wasn't he worth three pounds? Not three pounds;
no. Fifty-five shillings, perhaps, would be a fair price in a week's
time. A fair price in a week's time--it was impossible to listen to the
careful bargaining over the creature feeding in the sun. I went into the
shop to buy something, and within a few minutes was asked, as an obvious
admirer of the lamb, whether I would like him for fifty shillings.

Miss Edgeworth should have stayed at Ewhurst, and have seen the best of
an English village as I did that July afternoon. Opposite the church--a
church which, with its stainless glass windows, its white walls, and its
green carpet and curtains, gives you the feeling of entering a
drawing-room--are the village schools. Out of the schools as I watched
them the village children came tumbling. Half of them made for a passage
by the churchyard, where a small boy, gipsy or pedlar's child, sat in
the shadow of the wall. He was dusty and hot, and by him lay a large
bundle wrapped in a spotted blue handkerchief. One of the schoolchildren
stopped after passing him, and whispered to another. Then four little
boys went back and each dropped a penny or a halfpenny into the child's
hand. Then they ran off through the churchyard.

The Ordnance Maps mark a hill north of Ewhurst of which the country
children have never heard. Coneyhurst Hill, the map assures you, is 844
feet high, only 50 feet less than Hindhead. People who like
bell-heather, bilberries, and a magnificent view should climb it, but it
is no use asking the children the way to Coneyhurst Hill. Pitch Hill
they know, and only Pitch Hill. Nor will they recognise bilberries or
whortleberries so called; "hurts" is the name. Another point on which
the traveller wandering in these wilds should assure himself is that he
has plenty of time, or has a compass with him, or can find his way by
the sun. The woods--Hurt Wood is the general name for miles--north and
west of Pitch Hill are the loneliest places. Here and there a forest
fire has cleared openings in the trees, but where the pines have fallen
or have been cut the bracken still grows breast high, and birches have
seeded themselves into thick, thwarting