It Is A Little Piece
Of Olden England Without Its Terror And Bloodshed.
The fawns fed away down the slope and presently into one of the broad
green open paths or drives, where the underwood on each side is lined
with bramble and with trailing white rose, which loves to cling to bushes
scarcely higher than itself.
Their runners stretch out at the edges of
the drive, so that from the underwood the mound of green falls aslant to
the sward. This gradual descent from the trees and ash to the bushes of
hawthorn, from the hawthorn to the bramble, thence to the rose and the
grass, gives to the vista of the broad path a soft, graceful aspect.
After the fawns had disappeared, the squire went on and entered under the
beeches from which they had emerged. He had not gone far before he struck
and followed a path which wound between the beech trunks and was entirely
arched over by their branches. Squirrels raced away at the sound of his
footsteps, darting over the ground and up the stems of the trees in an
instant. A slight rustling now and then showed that a rabbit had been
startled. Pheasants ran too, but noiselessly, and pigeons rose from the
boughs above. The wood-pigeons rose indeed, but they were not much
frightened, and quickly settled again. So little shot at, they felt safe,
and only moved from habit.
He crossed several paths leading in various directions, but went on,
gradually descending till the gable end of a farmhouse became visible
through the foliage. The old red tiles were but a few yards distant from
the boughs of the last beech, and there was nothing between the house and
the forest but a shallow trench almost filled with dead brown leaves and
edged with fern. Out from that trench, sometimes stealthily slipping
between the flattened fern-stalks, came a weasel, and, running through
the plantains and fringe-like mayweed or stray pimpernel which covered
the neglected ground, made for the straw-rick. Searching about for mice,
he was certain to come across a hen's egg in some corner, perhaps in a
hay-crib, which the cattle, now being in the meadow, did not use. Or a
stronger stoat crept out and attacked anything that he fancied. Very
often there was a rabbit sitting in the long grass which grows round
under an old hay-rick. He would sit still and let anyone pass who did not
know of his presence, but those who were aware used to give the grass a
kick if they went that way, when he would carry his white tail swiftly
round the corner of the rick. In winter hares came nibbling at everything
in the garden, and occasionally in summer, if they fancied an herb: they
would have spoiled it altogether if free to stay there without fear of
some one suddenly appearing.
Dogs there were in plenty, but all chained, except a few mere puppies
which practically lived indoors.
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