its body. The
forward edge of the wing--its thickest part--as it is pressed to its
side, draws a line sweeping round--a painter's line. How many
wood-pigeons are there in the South Wood alone, besides the copses
and the fir-plantations? How many turtle-doves in spring in the
hedges and outlying thickets, in summer among the shocks of corn?
And all these are his--the Squire's--not in the sense of possession,
for no true wild creature was ever anyone's yet; it would die first;
but still, within his ring-fence, and their destinies affected by
his will, since he can cut down their favourite ash and hawthorn, or
thin them with shot. Neither of which he does. The robin, methinks,
sings sweetest of autumn-tide in the deep woods, when no other birds
speak or trill, unexpectedly giving forth his plaintive note,
complaining that the summer is going, and the time of love, and the
sweet cares of the nest; telling you that the berries are brown, the
dew-berries over-ripe, and dropping of over-ripeness like dew as the
morning wind shakes the branch; that the wheat is going to the
stack, and that the rusty plough will soon be bright once more by
the attrition of the earth.

Many of them sing thus in the South Wood, yet scarce any two within
sound of each other, for the robin is jealous, and likes to have you
all to himself as he tells his tale. Song-thrushes--what ranks of
them in April; larks, what hundreds and hundreds of them on the
hills above the green wheat; finches of varied species; blackbirds;
nightingales; crakes in the meadows; partridges; a whole page might
be filled merely with their names.

These, too, are in the ring-fence with the hills and woods, the
yellow iris of the common, and the red-roofed farm-houses. Besides
which, there are beings infinitely higher--namely, men and women in
village and hamlet, and more precious still, those little children
with hobnail boots and clean jackets and pinafores, who go
a-blackberrying on their way to school. All these are in the
ring-fence. Upon their physical destinies the Squire can exercise a
powerful influence, and has done so, as the school itself testifies.

Now, is not a large estate a living picture? Or rather, is it not
formed of a hundred living pictures? So beautiful it looks, its
hills, its ripe wheat, its red-roofed farm-houses, and acres upon
acres of oaks; so beautiful, it must be valuable--most valuable; it
is visible, tangible wealth. It is difficult to disab