too big for us to manage;--but I was quite sure that the
ewe would not desert it, and as the dark was coming on, we both trusted
that the shepherds on folding their flock would miss them and return for
them;--and so I am happy to say it proved.

Another turning of the dell gives a glimpse of the dark coppice by which
it is backed, and from which we are separated by some marshy, rushy
ground, where the springs have formed into a pool, and where the
moor-hen loves to build her nest. Ay, there is one scudding away now;--I
can hear her plash into the water, and the rustling of her wings amongst
the rushes. This is the deepest part of the wild dingle. How uneven
the ground is! Surely these excavations, now so thoroughly clothed with
vegetation, must originally have been huge gravel pits; there is no
other way of accounting for the labyrinth, for they do dig gravel in
such capricious meanders; but the quantity seems incredible. Well! there
is no end of guessing! We are getting amongst the springs, and must
turn back. Round this corner, where on ledges like fairy terraces the
orchises and arums grow, and we emerge suddenly on a new side of the
dell, just fronting the small homestead of our good neighbour Farmer
Allen.

This rustic dwelling belongs to what used to be called in this part
of the country 'a little bargain': thirty or forty acres, perhaps, of
arable land, which the owner and his sons cultivated themselves, whilst
the wife and daughters assisted in the husbandry, and eked out the
slender earnings by the produce of the dairy, the poultry yard, and the
orchard;--an order of cultivators now passing rapidly away, but in
which much of the best part of the English character, its industry,
its frugality, its sound sense, and its kindness might be found. Farmer
Allen himself is an excellent specimen, the cheerful venerable old man
with his long white hair, and his bright grey eye, and his wife is a
still finer. They have had a hard struggle to win through the world
and keep their little property undivided; but good management and good
principles, and the assistance afforded them by an admirable son, who
left our village a poor 'prentice boy, and is now a partner in a great
house in London have enabled them to overcome all the difficulties of
these trying times, and they are now enjoying the peaceful evenings of
a well-spent life as free from care and anxiety as their best friends
could desire.

Ah! there is Mr. Allen in