dripping rain upon it and made it little more than a mud pool.
Between straggling bushes of elder and hazel, blackberry and
thorn, it made its solitary shambling way, so sunken into itself
with long disuse that neither to the right nor to the left of it
could anything be seen of the surrounding country. Hidden behind
the intervening foliage on either hand were rich pastures and
ploughed fields, but with these the old road had nothing in
common. There were many things better suited to its nature, such
as the melodious notes of the birds which made their homes year
after year amid its bordering thickets, or the gathering together
in springtime of thousands of primroses, whose pale, small, elfin
faces peeped out from every mossy corner,--or the scent of secret
violets in the grass, filling the air with the delicate sweetness
of a breathing made warm by the April sun. Or when the thrill of
summer drew the wild roses running quickly from the earth skyward,
twining their stems together in fantastic arches and tufts of deep
pink and flush-white blossom, and the briony wreaths with their
small bright green stars swung pendent from over-shadowing boughs
like garlands for a sylvan festival. Or the thousands of tiny
unassuming herbs which grew up with the growing speargrass,
bringing with them pungent odours from the soil as from some deep-
laid storehouse of precious spices. These choice delights were the
old by-road's peculiar possession, and through a wild maze of
beauty and fragrance it strayed on with a careless awkwardness,
getting more and more involved in tangles of green,--till at last,
recoiling abruptly as it were upon its own steps, it stopped short
at the entrance to a cleared space in front of a farmyard. With
this the old by-road had evidently no sort of business whatever,
and ended altogether, as it were, with a rough shock of surprise
at finding itself in such open quarters. No arching trees or