ting down all those splendid trees and laying bare those
deep, leafy nooks, the haunts of a thousand _Midsummer Nights'
Dreams_, to the common air and the staring sun. The sight of the
dear old familiar paths brought the tears to my eyes, for, stripped
and thinned of their trees and robbed of their beauty, my memory
restored all their former loveliness. On we went down to Byefleet to
the mill, to Langton's through the sweet, turfy meadows, by hawthorn
hedges musical as sweet...."

Well, she could not do that now. Let an ornithologist poet lament the
change:--

By Brooklands hill but since a year
Untrod the meadows lay,
Unspanned through musk and meadowsweet
Ran olive-bright the Wey.

Blackbirds about that wind and wild
Carolled a roguish choir,
From willow green to willow grey
Kingfishers shot sapphire!

There gay and far the Surrey sun
Spread cowslips far and gay,
Lit wide the orchid's purple flame,
The white fire of the May;

And thither stole a happy boat
To hear the ringdoves coo,
To mark again the drumming snipe
Zigzag the April blue:

To watch the darting dragon-flies
Live pine-needles awing--
O Brooklands meadow, there we knew
You first knew all the spring!

And then--the change! Spade, engine, pick,
The gangers' myriad Hun,
A thousand branches' banished shade,
Flat glare of sand and sun.

From pine and stream to steam and stone,
From peace to din and pain,
From old unused to new unuse,
But never Wey again!

The motor course led to at least one interesting discovery. When the
picks were hard at work in the sand, and day and night were enlivened
by steam-engines and casual labourers sleeping off their wages in other
people's summerhouses, there went about a word of a great find. A pot of
copper had been found, some said; of coppers, said others; of Roman gold
coins, there was a rumour, and all the coins exchanged for beer. Perhaps
some coins were found; what certainly was found was a beautifully made
bronze bucket, buried deep below clay and sand in a bed of gravel. It
has been classified by the experts as belonging to a Venetian workshop
of the seventh century B.C.--actually the early days of the Tarquins.
Prehistoric traffic between Britain and Italy may not be an entirely new
idea, but the bucket opens a new chapter.

A few