- The sound of a horn, - the hunt was up; but this was not
the hunting season. Looking out of the kiln door I saw a boy running at
full speed down the lane with a small drain-pipe tucked under his arm. He
stopped, put the pipe to his mouth, and blew a blast on this 'dread
horn,' then jumped through a gap in the hedge and disappeared. They were
playing fox and hounds; who but a boy would have thought of using a
drain-pipe for a horn? It gave a good note, too. In and about the kiln I
learned that if you smash a frog with a stone, no matter how hard you hit
him, he cannot die till sunset. You must be careful not to put on any new
article of clothing for the first time on a Saturday, or some severe
punishment will ensue. One person put on his new boots on a Saturday, and
on Monday broke his arm. Some still believe in herbs, and gather
wood-betony for herb tea, or eat dandelion leaves between slices of dry
toast. There is an old man living in one of the villages who has reached
the age of a hundred and sixty years, and still goes hop-picking. Ever so
many people had seen him, and knew all about him; an undoubted fact, a
public fact; but I could not trace him to his lair. His exact whereabouts
could not be fixed. I live in hopes of finding him in some obscure 'Hole'
yet (many little hamlets are 'Holes,' as Froghole, Foxhole). What an
exhibit for London! Did he realise his own value, he would soon come
forth. I joke, but the existence of this antique person is firmly
believed in. Sparrows are called 'spadgers.' The cat wandering about got
caught in the rat-clams - - i.e. - a gin. Another cat was the miller's
favourite at the windmill, a well-fed, happy, purring pussy, fond of the
floury miller - he as white as snow, she as black as a coal. One day pussy
was ingeniously examining the machinery, when the wind suddenly rose, the
sails revolved, and she was ground up, fulfilling the ogre's
threat - 'I'll grind his bones to make my bread.' This was not so sad as
the fate of the innkeeper's cow. You have read the 'Arabian Nights' - that
book of wisdom, for in truth the stories are no stories; they are the
records of ancient experience, the experience of a thousand years, and
some of them are as true and as deeply to be pondered on as anything in
the holiest books the world reverences. You remember the Three Calenders,
each of whom lost an eye - struck out in the most arbitrary and cruel
fashion. The innkeeper had a cow, a very pretty, quiet cow, but in time
it came about that her left horn, turning inwards, grew in such a manner
that it threatened to force the point into her head.
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