Germany, noted for its treasures of
art.

[24] #The Louvre#: an ancient palace in Paris, containing vast
collections of sculptures and paintings.

[25] #Sauer-kraut#: a German dish, prepared from cabbage.

[26] #Bee-orchis# (orkis): a wild-flower resembling a bee.

[27] #Down#: a barren hill of chalk or sand.

[28] #Civil wars#: those between Parliament and King Charles
I., in the seventeenth century.

[29] #Butts#: targets for archery practice. Before the
invention of gunpowder they were set up by law in every
parish.

[30] #Laid#: dispelled by religious ceremonies.

Now, in my time, when we got home by the old coach, which put us down
at the cross-roads with our boxes, the first day of the holidays, and
had been driven off by the family coachman, singing "Dulce domum"[31]
at the top of our voices, there we were, fixtures, till black
Monday[32] came round. We had to cut out our own amusements within a
walk or a ride of home. And so we got to know all the country folk,
and their ways and songs and stories, by heart; and went over the
fields and woods and hills again and again, till we made friends of
them all. We were Berkshire, or Gloucestershire, or Yorkshire boys:
and you're young cosmopolites,[33] belonging to all counties and no
countries. No doubt it's all right; I dare say it is. This is the day
of large views and glorious humanity, and all that; but I wish
backsword play[34] hadn't gone out in the Vale of White Horse, and
that that confounded Great Western hadn't carried away Alfred's Hill
to make an embankment.

[31] #Dulce domum#: sweet home.

[32] #Black Monday#: the end of the holidays.

VALES IN GENERAL.

But to return to the said Vale of White Horse, the country in which
the first scenes of this true and interesting story are laid. As I
said, the Great Western now runs right through it, and it is a land of
large rich pastures, bounded by ox-fences, and covered with fine
hedgerow timber, with here and there a nice little gorse[35] or
spinney,[36] where abideth poor Charley,[37] having no other cover[38]
to which to betake himself for miles and miles, when pushed out some
fine November morning by the Old Berkshire.[39] Those who have been
there, and well mounted, only know how he and the staunch little pack
who dash after him--heads high and sterns low, with a breast-high
scent--can consume the ground at such times. There being little