little way along the turfy path,--an operation which that sagacious
quadruped endured with the most perfect passiveness, the most
admirable non-resistance. No wonder that May's discernment was at
fault, I myself, if I had not been aware of the trick, should have
said that the ugly rough thing which she was trundling along, like a
bowl or a cricket-ball, was an inanimate substance, something devoid
of sensation and of will. At last my poor pet, thoroughly perplexed
and tired out, fairly relinquished the contest, and came slowly
away, turning back once or twice to look at the object of her
curiosity, as if half inclined to return and try the event of
another shove. The sudden flight of a wood-pigeon effectually
diverted her attention; and Ellen amused herself by fancying how the
hedgehog was scuttling away, till our notice was also attracted by a
very different object.

We had nearly threaded the wood, and were approaching an open grove
of magnificent oaks on the other side, when sounds other than of
nightingales burst on our ear, the deep and frequent strokes of the
woodman's axe, and emerging from the Pinge we discovered the havoc
which that axe had committed. Above twenty of the finest trees lay
stretched on the velvet turf. There they lay in every shape and
form of devastation: some, bare trunks stripped ready for the
timber carriage, with the bark built up in long piles at the side;
some with the spoilers busy about them, stripping, hacking, hewing;
others with their noble branches, their brown and fragrant shoots
all fresh as if they were alive--majestic corses, the slain of
to-day! The grove was like a field of battle. The young lads who
were stripping the bark, the very children who were picking up the
chips, seemed awed and silent, as if conscious that death was around
them. The nightingales sang faintly and interruptedly--a few low