The Ground-Ash | Page 4

attorney who managed for the infant heir, a ward in Chancery, had claimed the property. But the matter had been compromised upon the payment of such a rent as the present prospects of the family would fairly allow. Besides collecting fir cones for the baskets, they picked up all they could in that pine forest, (for it was little less,) and sold such as were discoloured, or otherwise unfit for working up, to Lady Denys and other persons who liked the fine aromatic odour of these the pleasantest of pastilles, in their dressing-room or drawing-room fires. "Did I like the smell? We had a cart there--might they bring us a hamper-ful?" And it was with great difficulty that a trifling present (for we did not think of offering money as payment) could be forced upon the grateful children. "We," they said, "had been their first friends." For what very small assistance the poor are often deeply, permanently thankful! Well says the great poet--
"I've heard of hearts unkind, good deeds With ill deeds still returning; Alas, the gratitude of man Hath oftener left me mourning!" Wordsworth.
Again for above a year we lost sight of our little favourites, for such they were with both of us; though absence, indisposition, business, company--engagements, in short, of many sorts--combined to keep us from the Moss for upwards of a twelvemonth. Early in the succeeding April, however, it happened that, discussing with some morning visiters the course of a beautiful winding brook, (one of the tributaries to the Loddon, which bright and brimming river has nearly as many sources as the Nile,) one of them observed that the well-head was in Lanton Wood, and that it was a bit of scenery more like the burns of the North Countrie (my visiter was a Northumbrian) than anything he had seen in the south. Surely I had seen it? I was half ashamed to confess that I had not--(how often are we obliged to confess that we have not seen the beauties which lie close to our doors, too near for observation!)--and the next day proving fine, I determined to repair my omission.
It was a soft and balmy April morning, just at that point of the flowery spring when violets and primroses are lingering under the northern hedgerows, and cowslips and orchises peeping out upon the sunny banks. My driver was the clever, shrewd, arch boy Dick; and the first part of our way lay along the green winding lanes which lead to Everley; we then turned to the left, and putting up our phaeton at a small farmhouse, where my attendant (who found acquaintances everywhere) was intimate, we proceeded to the wood; Dick accompanying me, carrying my flower-basket, opening the gates, and taking care of my dog Dash, a very beautiful thorough-bred Old English spaniel, who was a little apt, when he got into a wood, to run after the game, and forget to come out again.
I have seldom seen anything in woodland scenery more picturesque and attractive than the old coppice of Lanton, on that soft and balmy April morning. The underwood was nearly cut, and bundles of long split poles for hooping barrels were piled together against the tall oak trees, bursting with their sap; whilst piles of faggots were built up in other parts of the copse, and one or two saw-pits, with light open sheds erected over them, whence issued the measured sound of the saw and the occasional voices of the workmen, almost concealed by their subterranean position, were placed in the hollows. At the far side of the coppice, the operation of hewing down the underwood was still proceeding, and the sharp strokes of the axe and the bill, softened by distance, came across the monotonous jar of the never-ceasing saw. The surface of the ground was prettily tumbled about, comprehending as pleasant a variety of hill and dale as could well be comprised in some thirty acres. It declined, however, generally speaking, towards the centre of the coppice, along which a small, very small rivulet, scarcely more than a runlet, wound its way in a thousand graceful meanders. Tracking upward the course of the little stream, we soon arrived at that which had been the ostensible object of our drive--the spot whence it sprung.
It was a steep irregular acclivity on the highest side of the wood, a mound, I had almost said a rock, of earth, cloven in two about the middle, but with so narrow a fissure that the brushwood which grew on either side nearly filled up the opening, so that the source of the spring still remained concealed, although the rapid gushing of the water made a pleasant music in that pleasant place; and here and there a sunbeam, striking upon the sparkling stream, shone with a