pronounced by all unprejudiced judges as the true days of merrie
England. Let us, then, though not unmindful of the past, pin our faith
firmly on the present and the future. _Carpe diem_ should be our motto
in these fleeting times, and, above all, progress, not retrogression.
Let us, as the old, old sound of the village bells comes to us over the
rolling downs this New Year's eve, recall to mind

".... the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be."

Let our hearts warm to the battle cry of advancing civilisation and the
attainment of the ideal humanity, soaring upwards step by step,
re-echoing the prayer contained in those lilting stanzas with which
Tennyson greets the New Year:

"Ring out the old, ring in the new;
Ring happy bells across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

"Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

"Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right;
Ring in the common love of good.

"Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

"Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land.
Ring in the Christ that is to be."

[Illustration: Coln S' Aldwyns 429.png]

CHAPTER XVIII.

WHEN THE SUN GOES DOWN.

"I saw Eternity the other night
Like a great ring of pure and endless light,
All calm, as it was bright:--
And round beneath it, time in hours, days, years,
Driven by the spheres,
Like a vast shadow moved, in which the world
And all her train were hurl'd."

HENRY VAUGHAN.

It is the end of May; a bright, rainless, and at times bitterly cold
month it has been. But now the chill east wind has almost died away.
Summer has come at last. Once more I am making for the Downs. Very
seldom am I there at this period of the year; but before going away for
several months, I bethought me that I would go and inspect the
improvements at the fox-covert, stopping on my way at the "Jubilee"
gorse covert we lately planted, to see if ther