jolly young mutineer, faring forth under the genial sun? Anyhow,
here was the friendly well, in its old place, half way up the
lane. Hither the yoke-shouldering village-folk were wont to come
to fill their clinking buckets; when the drippings made worms
of wet in the thick dust of the road. They had flat wooden
crosses inside each pail, which floated on the top and (we were
instructed) served to prevent the water from slopping over. We
used to wonder by what magic this strange principle worked, and
who first invented the crosses, and whether he got a peerage for
it. But indeed the well was a centre of mystery, for a hornet's
nest was somewhere hard by, and the very thought was fearsome.
Wasps we knew well and disdained, storming them in their
fastnesses. But these great Beasts, vestured in angry orange,
three stings from which--so 't was averred--would kill a horse,
these were of a different kidney, and their warning drone
suggested prudence and retreat. At this time neither villagers
nor hornets encroached on the stillness: lessons, apparently,
pervaded all Nature. So, after dabbling awhile in the well--what
boy has ever passed a bit of water without messing in it?--I
scrambled through the hedge, avoiding the hornet-haunted side,
and struck into the silence of the copse.

If the lane had been deserted, this was loneliness become
personal. Here mystery lurked and peeped; here brambles caught
and held with a purpose of their own, and saplings whipped
the face with human spite. The copse, too, proved vaster in
extent, more direfully drawn out, than one would ever have
guessed from its frontage on the lane: and I was really glad when
at last the wood opened and sloped down to a streamlet brawling
forth into the sunlight. By this cheery companion I wandered