property of the soil belongs to the latter, and he only has the power of
enclosing the waste so as to make fields and plant woods upon it,
provided always that he leaves a sufficient portion for the use of the
villagers. In times gone by, however, when the lord of the manor and his
agent were not very watchful, it was the practice of poor persons, who
did not care how uncomfortably they lived, to seek out some distant
hollow, or the farthest and most hidden side of a hillock, and there
build themselves such a low, small hut, as should escape the notice of
any passer-by, should they chance to go that way. Little by little,
making low fences which looked like the surrounding gorse bushes, they
enclosed small portions of the waste land, or, as it is called,
encroached upon the common; and if they were able to keep their
encroachment without having their hedges broken down, or if the lord of
the manor neglected to demand rent for it for the space of twenty years,
their fields and gardens became securely and legally their own. Because
of this right, therefore, are to be found here and there little farms of
three or four fields a-piece, looking like islands, with the wide, open
common around them; and some miles away over the breezy uplands there is
even a little hamlet of these poor cottages, all belonging to the people
who dwell in them.

Many years ago, even many years before my story begins, a poor woman--who
was far worse off than a widow, for her husband had just been sentenced
to transportation for twenty-one years--strayed down to these mountains
upon her sorrowful way home to her native place. She had her only child
with her, a boy five years of age; and from some reason or other, perhaps
because she could not bear to go home in shame and disgrace, she sought
out a very lonely hiding-place among the hills, and with her own hands
reared rough walls of turf and stones, until she had formed such a rude
hut as would just give shelter to her and her boy. There they lived,