the land its own. Highly satisfactory, of
course, to the men dividing the spoil; and
as it requires more of public spirit and                                                            length of purse than falls to the lot of most
of us, to try the question at law, the land-takers                                             grow bold with impunity,and the fine old forest
is eaten up year after year with a greedy rapidity
which grows by what it feeds on.

Side by side, with land on which the wild
trees and tangled undergrowth are flourishing
in much the same condition as when our
forefathers hunted the wild boar here, and stained
their bodies with woad, are vulgar little cockney
boxes, with fine names and tawdry formal
railed-in gardens, reminding one of Twopenny
Town, N.W. The very road you're driving on,
and which is a convenient cut enough from
the railway station to the highway, is filched
from the common. Over by the village on the
hill yonder, and through the trees on the rising
ground to the left, was a fine open plot, known
as the Green. A railing is put round it now,
and I suppose we should be warned off as
trespassers, if we ventured upon its cool soft turf.
But the most wholesale spoliation of all is at
the village to which I'm taking you next.
There's no such tavern-sign now as the one
you're looking for, but the old inn is here
under another name, with front bulging over
the pathway, overhanging stories, drowsy little
diamond-paned lattices, quaint gable-ends,
zig-zag chimneys, cozy little bar, sunken
uneven floors, and queer out-of-the-way corners,
just as when its famous landlord gazed wisely
at the boiler's burnished side for inspiration.
The old oak-panelled room where Queen
Elizabeth is said to have slept, now bears the
mysterious word "Lodge" on a metal plate, and has
a black knocker on its door; within it are certain
throne-like chairs, swathed in clean white linen,
and with straight stiff backs reaching to the
low ceiling, which, with other symbols in the
room, tell graphic stories to the initiated of
wardens and worshipfuls, together with ancient
and solemn rites, masonic "firings," and
secretary's toasts. A great place for dinners now,
they tell us; parochial authorities, courts, and
societies from Babylon often choosing the queer
rambling old place for meeting in. But we
must not linger for bit or sup now. Cloudland
is to be seen yet. Cloudland, where the kind
clergyman is lord of the manor, who says all
Sunday visitors are so wicked and vile; and
where justices of the peace send the commoners
to prison who decline to sell their rights. There
are few prettier spots in the country, and the
forest is at its perfection here.

The rich undulating fields we pass; the fine
old English lanes where the trees on each
side bend forward to overhang and intertwine
like stout friends who've tried and love
each other, are all full of quiet and home-like
beauty. Cloudland itself you may see dotted
in straggling fashion along yon hill-side;
and it can, besides the clergyman I've spoken
of, boast of a few wealthy residents, who,
by industry, enterprise, and thrift, have risen
from low rungs in the commercial ladder,
to be Nimrods of the Wessex hunting-fields,
and justices of the peace. Their new
postions, mark you, are not unimportant to the
points we're discussing; for they're now thrown
in with the landed interest, and are not very
likely to raise an impious hand against what
those demigods, "the county families," decree.
It's a flattering thing to be consulted by people
whom you're perhaps ready to grovel before as
your social superiors; and when these welcome
you as one of themselves, make flattering
appeals to your well-known interest in the
county, and ask you to accept a fine plot
of land at a nominal price, it would be a
positive slur upon your business capacity if
you were to show the cold shoulder, or give a
churlish nay. This is my way of accounting for
what I'm going to relate; but then I'm only a
poor Sunday visitor, you see, without as much land
of my own as a lark could perch on, and it's quite
possible I'm wrong. But that the choicest parts
of the common have been recently surrounded by
these stout posts and rails; that the clergyman
lord of the manor has modestly taken several
hundred acres of the best forest-land as his
private share; that the new J.P.s have accepted
smaller plots, and bought other plots from the lord
at prices per acre which bear the same proportion
to their real value as the sum given by a
Whitechapel "fence" for the watches his clients have
irregularly "conveyed" do to their legitimate
cost; that the gentlemen who co-operate with
Mr. Shaw Lefevre, M.P., at the Commons
Preservation Society, have a suit pending against
the enclosure in the Court of Chancery—
concerning these plain facts there can be no doubt
whatever. A resident cottager is the man on
whose behalf the action against the lord of the
manor has been brought, and as his story is
rather curious, I'll tell it you. When it was
determined to ignore the ancient privileges of
the public generally, and to assume that the
handful of Cloudland residents were alone to
be considered, it was almost "ask and have"
amongst them.

There never was such liberality as when the
common was cut up and divided. Even the mere
tenant of a farm got a slice; and as for any
one owning a freehold cottage or a bit of
ground, he almost made his own terms. The
landlord of the inn, and one or two other astute
spirits, haven't taken their bits yet, but it's
thoroughly understood that they're ready to do
so, and that the longer they hold off in a
friendly way the handsomer will be their
reward. But, in the midst of all this charming
unanimity, one obstinate family stood out.
Mere labourers, with neither stake in the
county, nor position in the world; these
men, father and son, showed a sturdy,
stubborn front when blandly spoken to of
compromise. "Didn't want no truck with
it. Had gone free on the common ever since
he could remember; and would rather lop
his wood as before, and go on free, than have
a bit o' ground to call his own, which