plow-land, and few woods, the Vale is only an average sporting
country, except for hunting. The villages are straggling, queer
old-fashioned places, the houses being dropped down without the least
regularity, in nooks and out-of-the-way corners, by the sides of
shadowy lanes and footpaths, each with its patch of garden. They are
built chiefly of good gray-stone and thatched;[40] though I see that
within the last year or two the red brick cottages are multiplying,
for the Vale is beginning to manufacture largely both bricks and
tiles. There are lots of waste ground by the side of the roads in
every village, amounting often to village greens, where feed the pigs
and ganders of the people; and these roads are old-fashioned, homely
roads very dirty and badly made, and hardly endurable in winter, but
pleasant jog-trot roads, running through the great pasture lands,
dotted here and there with little clumps of thorns, where the sleek
kine are feeding, with no fence on either side of them, and a gate at
the end of each field, which makes you get out of your gig (if you
keep one), and gives you a chance of looking about you every quarter
of a mile.

[33] #Cosmopolites#: citizens of the world at large, familiar
with all countries.

[34] #Backsword play#: the game of single-stick, or fencing
with cudgels.

[35] #Gorse#: a thick, prickly, evergreen shrub, which grows
wild and bears beautiful yellow flowers.

[36] #Spinney#: a small grove filled with undergrowth.

[37] #Charley#: a fox.

[38] #Cover#: a retreat, or hiding-place.

[39] #Old Berkshire#: an association of hunters.

[40] #Thatched#: roofed with straw or reeds.

One of the moralists whom we sat under in our youth--was it the great
Richard Swiveller,[41] or Mr. Stiggins?[42] says, "We are born in a
vale, and must take the consequences of being found in such a
situation." These consequences, I for one am ready to encounter. I
pity people who wern't born in a vale. I don't mean a flat country,
but a vale; that is, a flat country bounded by hills. The having your
hill _always_ in view, if you choose to turn toward him, that's the
essence of a vale. There he is forever in the distance, your friend
and companion; you never lose him as you do in hilly districts.

[41] #Richard Swiveller#: a jolly character who lives by his
wits. See Dickens's "Old Curiosity Shop."

[42] #Mr. Stiggins#: a hypocritical parson