ually turned from side to side,
starting at everything, sometimes bare places on the shoulders, all tell
the same tale of blows and brutal treatment.

Suburban streets which a minute before were crowded with ladies and
children (most gentlemen are in town at midday) are suddenly vacated
when the word passes that cattle are coming. People rush everywhere,
into gardens, shops, back lanes, anywhere, as if the ringing scabbards
of charging cavalry were heard, or the peculiar thumping rattle of
rifles as they come to the "present" before a storm of bullets. It is no
wonder that townsfolk exhibit a fear of cattle which makes their friends
laugh when they visit the country after such experiences as these. This
should be put down with a firm hand.

By the roadside here the hay tyers, who cut up the hayricks into
trusses, use balances--a trifling matter, but sufficient to mark a
difference, for in the west such men use a steelyard slung on a prong,
the handle of the prong on the shoulder and the points stuck in the
rick, with which to weigh the trusses. Wooden cottages, wooden barns,
wooden mills are also characteristic.

Mouchers come along the road at all times and seasons, gathering
sacksful of dandelions in spring, digging up fern roots and cowslip mars
for sale, cutting briars for standard roses, gathering water-cresses and
mushrooms, and in the winter cutting rushes.

There is a rook with white feathers in the wing which belongs to an
adjacent rookery, and I have observed a blackbird also streaked with
white. One January day, when the snow was on the ground and the frost
was sharp, when the pale sun seemed to shine brightest round the rim of
the disk, as if there were a band of stronger light there, I saw a white
animal under a heap of poles by the wayside, near the great hedge I have
mentioned. It immediately concealed itself, but, thinking that it was a
ferret gone astray, I waited, and presently the head and neck were
cautiously protruded.

I made the usual call with the lips, but the creature instantly returned
to cover. I waited again, hiding this time, and after an interval the
creature moved and hastened away from the poles, where it was, in a
measure, exposed, to the more secure shelter of some bushes. Then I saw
that it was of a clear white, while so-called white ferrets are usually
a dingy yellow, and the white tail was tipped with black. From these
circumstances, and from the timidity and anxious desire to