tory confabulations going on in
the lane, and then large stones go crashing up into the tree, falling
back sometimes within the hedge, where there is a bit of grass and a
garden seat. Occasionally, playing the absurd part of irate
property-owner, I have gone to the gate near by to drive off the
offenders, but have opened it only in time to see a troop of urchins,
alarmed by the click of the gate-latch, scurrying away like rabbits
round the bend of the lane. One Sunday afternoon, however, when I looked
out after a stone had fallen nearly on my head, it was to find two boys
calmly waiting for me to approach them. Their school caps showed them to
be two boys of the grammar-school. The interview went comically. Upon
being told crossly that they were a nuisance, the boys apologized--an
act which seemed to put me in the wrong. In my annoyance at that, I
hinted ironically that, in fact, I was a benevolent person, quite
willing to admit boys inside the hedge to pick up nuts, if nuts they
really must have. Then I turned away. To my astonishment, they took me
at my word, followed me into the garden, and calmly began to pick up
nuts; while I withdrew, discomfited. I have since smiled to think of the
affair; but I recall it now with more interest, for the sake of the
contrast it affords between middle-class boys and labouring-class boys
in exactly similar circumstances. Where the former behave confidently,
because they feel safe, the latter are overtaken by panic, and run to
cover.

In this light another curious fact about the village boys gains in
significance, supposing it to be indeed a fact. From the nature of the
case, proof is not possible, but I have a strong impression that,
excepting to go to the town, the boys of the village rarely, if ever,
stray into neighbouring parishes, or more than a few hundred yards away
from their parents' homes. One exception must be noted. In the lonely
and silent fir-woods, which begin in the next valley and stretch away
over ridge and dell for some miles from south-east to south-west, one
sometimes comes upon a group of village children--little boys and girls
together--filling sacks with fir-cones, and pushing an old perambulator
to carry the load. But these are hardly voluntary expeditions; and the
boys are always very small ones, while the girls are in charge. The
bigger boys, of from ten to thirteen years old, do not go into the
woods. They play in the roads and pathways, or on the corners