Excerpt from Felix Holt; Jubal, and Other Poems; And the Spanish Gypsy

Grown leaves to make a resting-place for the jewels of the boar-frost. Such hedgerows were often as tall as the laborers' cottages dotted along the lanes, or clustered into a small hamlet, their little dingy windows telling, like thick-filmed eyes, of nothing but the darkness within. The passenger on the coach-box, bowled along above such a hamlet, saw chiefly the roofs of it: probably turned its back on the road, and seemed to lie away from everything but its own patch of earth and sky, away from the parish church by long fields and green lanes, away from all inter course except that of tramps. If its face could be seen, it was most likely dirty; but the dirt was Protestant dirt, and the big, bold, gin-breathing tramps were Protestant tramps. There was no sign of superstition near, no crucifix or image to indicate a misguided reverence: the inhabitants were probably so free from superstition that they were in much less awe of the parson than of the overseer. Yet they were saved from the excesses of Protestantism by not knowing how to read, and by the absence of handlooms and mines to be the pioneers of Dissent: they were kept safely in the via media of indifference, and could have registered themselves in the census by a big black mark as members of the Church of England.

But there were trim cheerful Villages too, with a neat or handsome parsonage and gray church set in the midst; there was the pleasant tinkle of the blacksmith's anvil, the patient cart horses waiting at his door; the basket-maker peeling his willow wands in the sunshine; the wheelwright putting the last touch to a blue cart with red wheels; here and there a cottage with bright transparent windows show ing pots full of blooming balsams or geraniums, and little gardens in front all double daisies or dark wallfiowers; at the well, clean and comely women carrying yoked buckets. And toward the free school small Britons dawdling 011, and handling their marbles in the pockets of unpatched cor duroys adorned with brass buttons. The land around was rich and marly, great corn-stacks stood in the rick-yards for the rick-burners had not found their way hither; the homesteads were those of rich farmers who paid no rent. Or had the rare advantage of a lease, and could afford to keep their corn till prices had risen. The coach would be sure to overtake some of them on their way to their outly ing fields or to the market-town, sitting heavily on their well-groomed horses, or weighing down one side of a1: olive-green gig. They probably thought of the coach witl'

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