Two rooks in succession flew to a nest the owners of which were absent,
and deliberately picked a great part of it to pieces, taking the twigs
for their own use. Unless the rook, therefore, be ever in his castle his
labour is torn down, and, as with men in the fierce struggle for wealth,
the meanest advantages are seized on. So strong is the rook's bill that
he tears living twigs of some size with it from the bough. The
white-throats were without such envy and contention.

From hence the footpath, leaving the copse, descends into a hollow, with
a streamlet flowing through a little meadow, barely an acre, with a
pollard oak in the centre, the rising ground on two sides shutting out
all but the sky, and on the third another wood. Such a dreamy hollow
might be painted for a glade in the Forest of Arden, and there on the
sward and leaning against the ancient oak one might read the play
through without being disturbed by a single passer-by. A few steps
farther and the stile opens on a road.

There the teams travel with rows of brazen spangles down their necks,
some with a wheatsheaf for design, some with a swan. The road itself, if
you follow it, dips into a valley where the horses must splash through
the water of a brook spread out some fifteen or twenty yards wide; for,
after the primitive Surrey fashion, there is no bridge for waggons. A
narrow wooden structure bears foot-passengers; you cannot but linger
half across and look down into its clear stream. Up the current where it
issues from the fields and falls over a slight obstacle the sunlight
plays and glances.

A great hawthorn bush grows on the bank; in spring, white with May; in
autumn, red with haws or peggles. To the shallow shore of the brook,