iries amongst
the villagers about their recollections of the hero of Waterloo, could
obtain no information. At last one venerable rustic vouchsafed the
extraordinary intelligence, "I believe as 'ow 'e were very good at
war"! What a thing it is to be famous!

Much more remains to be said upon the various subjects which this
history of our village suggests. But the day is closing, and our walk
through its sequestered lanes and our thoughts about the various scenes
which yonder venerable oaks have witnessed, must cease. But enough has
been said to show what a wealth of interest lies beneath the calm
exterior of ordinary village life. An American truly observes that
everything in the rural life of England is associated with ideas of
order, of quiet, sober, well-established principles, of hoary usage,
and reverent custom--the growth of ages of regular and peaceful
existence. The impression which the appearance of an English village
left on his mind is beautifully described in the following passage:--

"The old church of remote architecture with its low, massive portal,
its gothic tower, its windows rich with tracery and painted glass,
its scrupulous preservation, its stately monuments of warriors and
worthies of olden times, ancestors of the present lords of the soil;
its tombstones, recording successive generations of sturdy yeomanry,
whose progeny still plough the same fields, and kneel at the same
altar; the parsonage, a quaint, irregular pile, partly antiquated,
but repaired and altered in the tastes of various eyes and occupants;
the stile and footpath leading from the churchyard, across pleasant
fields, and along shady hedgerows, according to an immemorial
right-of-way; the neighbouring village, with its venerable cottages,
its public green sheltered by trees, under which the forefathers of
the present race have sported; the antique family mansion, standing
apart in some little rural domain, but looking down with a protecting
air on the surrounding scene. All these common features of English
landscape evince a calm and settled security, and hereditary
transmission of homebred virtues and local attachments, that speak
deeply and touchingly for the moral character of the nation."

One of the most distressing features of modern village life is the
continual decrease of its population. All our young men flock to the
towns, attracted by the greater excitement which town life offers, as
compared with the more homely pleas