England shall bide till Judgement Tide,
By Oak and Ash and Thorn!




YOUNG MEN AT THE MANOR


They were fishing, a few days later, in the bed of the
brook that for centuries had cut deep into the soft valley
soil. The trees closing overhead made long tunnels
through which the sunshine worked in blobs and
patches. Down in the tunnels were bars of sand and
gravel, old roots and trunks covered with moss or
painted red by the irony water; foxgloves growing lean
and pale towards the light; clumps of fern and thirsty shy
flowers who could not live away from moisture and
shade. In the pools you could see the wave thrown up by
the trouts as they charged hither and yon, and the pools
were joined to each other - except in flood-time, when all
was one brown rush - by sheets of thin broken water that
poured themselves chuckling round the darkness of the
next bend.

This was one of the children's most secret hunting-
grounds, and their particular friend, old Hobden the
hedger, had shown them how to use it. Except for the
click of a rod hitting a low willow, or a switch and tussle
among the young ash leaves as a line hung up for the