s but a wild, savage sort of scene for England, sir, in this
day of new-fashioned ploughs and farming improvements," said the tall
stranger, looking round at the ragged wastes and grim woods, which lay
steeped in the shade beside and before them.

"True," answered the youth; "and in a few years agricultural innovation
will scarcely leave, even in these wastes, a single furze-blossom for
the bee or a tuft of green-sward for the grasshopper; but, however
unpleasant the change may be for us foot-travellers, we must not repine
at what they tell us is so sure a witness of the prosperity of the
country."

"They tell us! who tell us?" exclaimed the stranger, with great
vivacity. "Is it the puny and spiritless artisan, or the debased and
crippled slave of the counter and the till, or the sallow speculator
on morals, who would mete us out our liberty, our happiness, our very
feelings by the yard and inch and fraction? No, no, let them follow
what the books and precepts of their own wisdom teach them; let them
cultivate more highly the lands they have already parcelled out by dikes
and fences, and leave, though at scanty intervals, some green patches of
unpolluted land for the poor man's beast and the free man's foot."

"You are an enthusiast on this subject," said the younger traveller, not
a little surprised at the tone and words of the last speech; "and if I
were not just about to commence the world with a firm persuasion that
enthusiasm on any matter is a great obstacle to success, I could be as
warm though not so eloquent as yourself."

"Ah, sir," said the stranger, sinking into a more natural and careless
tone, "I have a better right than I imagine you can claim to repine or
even to inveigh against the boundaries which are, day by day and hour
by hour, encroaching upon what I have learned to look upon as my own
territory. You were, just before I joined you, singing an old song; I
honour you for your taste: and no offence, sir, but a sort of fellowship
in feeling made me take the liberty to accost you. I am no very great
scholar in other things; but I owe my present circumstances of life
solely to my fondness for those old songs and quaint madrigals. And
I believe no person can better apply to himself Will Shakspeare's
invitation,--

'Under the greenwood tree
Who loves to lie with me,
And tune his merry note
Unto the sweet bird's throat,
Come hither, come hither, come hither,
Here shall he see
No