fixed to the ground with holes bored at the exact places for the vertical pieces, and indicating the correct length of the hurdle, when finished.  The horizontal pieces or rods are comparatively slender and easily twisted, and so can be bent back where they reach the outside uprights, and they are interlaced with the others in basket-making fashion.  At this stage the hurdle presents an unfinished appearance, with the ends of the horizontal rods protruding from the face of the hurdle.  Then the maker with a special narrow and exceedingly sharp hatchet chops off at one blow each of the projecting ends, with admirable accuracy, never missing his aim or exceeding the exact degree of strength necessary to sever the superfluous bit without injuring the hurdle itself.  The hurdle-maker is paid at a price per dozen, and he earns and deserves “good money.”

The art of making wattled hurdles is passed on and carried down from father to son for generations; the hurdle-maker is usually a cheery man and receives a gracious welcome from the missus and the maids when he calls at the farm-house, often emphasized by a pint of home-brewed.  He combines the accuracy of the draughtsman with the delicate touch of the accomplished lawn-tennis player.  His exits and his entrances from and to the scene of his labours are made in the remote mysterious surroundings of the seldom-trodden woods; overhead is the brilliant blue of the clear spring sky; the sunshine lights up the quiet hazel tones of his simple materials, his highly finished work, and his heaps of clean fresh chips; and his stage is the newly cut coppice, carpeted with primroses and wild hyacinths.  I have never seen a representation of this charming scene, and I commend the subject to the country-loving artist as full of interest and colour, and as a theme of natural beauty.

Our blacksmith came twice a week to the village when work was still plentiful in the early days of my farming, and I was not yet the only practical farmer in the place.  I need not describe the forge:  it has been sung by Longfellow, made music of by Handel, and painted by Morland; everybody knows its gleaming red-hot iron, its cascades of sparks, and the melodious clank of the heavy hammer as it falls upon the impressionable metal.  In all pursuits which entail the use of an open fire at night, its fascination attracts both busy and idle villagers, and more especially in winter it becomes a centre for local gossip.  At that season the time-honoured gossip corner, close to the Manor gate, was deserted for the warmth and action of the forge.  Blacksmiths, like other specialists, vary, and the difference may be expressed as that between the man who fits the shoe to the hoof, and the man who fits the hoof to the shoe—­in other words, the workman and the sloven.  Doubtless many a slum-housed artisan in the big town, driven from his country home by the flood of unfair foreign competition, looks back with longing to the bright old cottage garden of his youth and in his dreams hears the music of the forge, sees the blazing fire, and sniffs the pungency of scorching hoof.