The Ground-Ash | Page 4

had a little overshadowed the sunshine.
Squire Benson had died, and the consent to the erection of the cottage
being only verbal, the 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