d) served to
prevent the water from slopping over. We used to wonder by what magic
this strange principle worked, and who first invented the crosses, and
whether he got a peerage for it. But indeed the well was a centre of
mystery, for a hornet's nest was somewhere hard by, and the very thought
was fearsome. Wasps we knew well and disdained, storming them in their
fastnesses. But these great Beasts, vestured in angry orange, three
stings from which--so 't was averred--would kill a horse, these were
of a different kidney, and their warning drone suggested prudence and
retreat. At this time neither villagers nor hornets encroached on the
stillness: lessons, apparently, pervaded all Nature. So, after dabbling
awhile in the well--what boy has ever passed a bit of water
without messing in it?--I scrambled through the hedge, avoiding the
hornet-haunted side, and struck into the silence of the copse.

If the lane had been deserted, this was loneliness become personal. Here
mystery lurked and peeped; here brambles caught and held with a purpose
of their own, and saplings whipped the face with human spite. The copse,
too, proved vaster in extent, more direfully drawn out, than one would
ever have guessed from its frontage on the lane: and I was really glad
when at last the wood opened and sloped down to a streamlet brawling
forth into the sunlight. By this cheery companion I wandered along,
conscious of little but that Nature, in providing store of water-rats,
had thoughtfully furnished provender of right-sized stones. Rapids,
also, there were, telling of canoes and portages--crinkling bays and
inlets--caves for pirates and hidden treasures--the wise Dame had
forgotten nothing--till at last, after what lapse of time I know not, my
further course, though not the stream's, was barred by some six feet
of stout wire netting, stretched from side to side, just where a thick
hedge, arching till it touched, forbade all further view.

The excitement of the thing was becoming thrilling. A Black Flag
must surely be fluttering close by. Here was evidently a malignant
contrivance of the Pirates, designed to baffle our gun-boats when we
dashed up-stream to shell them from their lair. A gun-boat, indeed,
might well have hesitated, so stout was the netting, so close the hedge:
but I spied where a rabbit was wont to pass, close down by the water's
edge; where a rabbit could go a boy could follow, albeit stomach-wise
and with one leg in the stre