period of their ripeness. Bilberries are not the only edible fruits produced in the wood. Large strag gling bramble-bushes, scrambling up the sides of the thickets, are laden with such rich bunches of extremely fine blackberries, that we are tempted frequently to stop and rob them; wild strawberries of delicate flavor are abundant, and, in some of the less frequented corners, are found wild raspberries and barberries.

haunted these wild woods, except when we startle | ent in the districts where they abound, during the from its rest an occasional squirrel, or one of the smaller animals of prey. Now we cross a little open glade; next we have to push our way through masses of trees and underwood. These groups of trees and underwood, which surrounded and separated the glades, are what our forefathers called "shawes"; in the early romances, especially those which related to the wanderings and exploits of King Arthur's knights, when a knight conceals himself among the trees to withdraw from the view of other adventurers who are strangers to him, until he has had the opportunity of reconnoitring them, he is said to "bide under shawe," or to "stande under shawe."

On we pass, now through wider glades where, in the forests of older times, a party of Robin Hood's men might perhaps have been found enjoying their meal; and now through smaller openings, in which we might almost expect to see Robin Hood himself start out upon us. It must be kept in mind that we have been all this time going up hill, though by a gentle slope. At length, after we have advanced through glade and through thicket, we suddenly emerge from the close wood, and find ourselves at the summit of a lofty and steep bank facing the southwest.

The tree most abundant in our forest is the oak, which has been termed the weed among trees in this part of the island. The oak-trees in general overtop the shaws, but with them rise a multitude of other trees of less importance, and mostly well known. The sycamore also grows to considerable size. Among others more especially may be seen here the graceful birch, concerning which Gerald, Opposite us rises a much loftier hill, called the the father of herbalists, has handed down to us from Vinnall Hill, the highest point of which, known as the days of Elizabeth, as forming one of its chiefest the High Vinnall, and celebrated as presenting from "virtues " - for what plant or tree was without its its summit one of the most magnificent views in this virtues in those days?-"that its branches were beautiful country, is just in front of us. Below us is then considered to be a very valuable corrective for a deep and beautiful valley, very narrow at first, but boys at school"; and the no less elegant mountain-widening somewhat as it stretches eastward and as ash, with its clumps of bright red berries, beloved by thickly covered with wood as the part of the forest birds. Hence the Germans call this tree Vogelbeer- from which we have emerged, having a small 'trickbaum, the bird-berry-tree. Under all these are great ling stream, abounding in trout, running down its masses of trees of lower growth, and most conspicu- bottom. This stream bears the suggestive name of ous of all the hazel. Under our feet we are tram- Sunny Gutter; the valley is the scene of "Comus." pling upon the mass of bilberry bushes, which cover It may well be called, in the words of Milton, au the ground in immense quantities, and look prettiest" ominous wood," in which the enchanter dwelt, when they are covered with their small purple berries, of which, when we passed, only a few stragglers were here and there to be seen.

I confess that I enjoy the peculiar feel and sound produced by trampling over the bilberry bushes as we wander through the solitude of the forest. They call them whimberries in Shropshire; they are named blaeberries, or blueberries, in the North and in Scotland; and they have other names in other parts of the island. They seem, indeed, to have been from early times a favorite shrub among the peasantry. They are supposed to be the vaccinia of which Virgil speaks as being prized in spite of their insignificant appearance, while the better-looking ligustra were treated with neglect,

"O formose puer, nimium ne crede colori: Alba ligustra cadunt, vaccinia nigra leguntur." Eclog. II., 1. 13. The word vaccinium was certainly interpreted by mediæval writers as meaning a bilberry. The AngloSaxons seem to have considered the berries to have been a favorite food of the deer, for they called the fruit heorot-byrige, or heort-byrige, the hart's berry, and heorot-crop, the hart's bunch (the Anglo-Saxon word crop meaning a bunch of berries). The later English names of whorts and whortle-berries, given to the bilberry by the old herbalists, was perhaps a corruption of the Anglo-Saxon name. The name of whortle-berry is now given to a species of blackberry, representing perhaps the heorot-brembel, or hart's bramble, of the Anglo-Saxon physicians.

The old herbalists recount numerous "virtues " of the bilberry; but two only appear now to be acknowledged: they are useful for making tarts and for giving a fine rich purple tint to the fingers and lips of children. The latter quality is very appar

|

"In thick shelter of black shades imbowered." And in looking down into it we might imagine that still

"Fairies at bottom trip

By dimpled brook and fountain trim."
We might even suppose that the guardian Shep-
herd must have occupied the very spot on which
we are now standing, when he is made to describe
himself as

"Tending on flocks hard by i' th' hilly crofts
That brow this bottom glade."

This "brow" continues westward until it becomes a part of the line of hills of Bringewood Chase. Hard by, the high road, which has just emerged from the wood, passes on its way to Wigmore, over a rise of the ground on which there is said to have been placed in former times a small cell with the figure of the Virgin, at which the traveller paid his devotions and made his offering; and hence the spot was called St. Mary's Knoll, corrupted into Maryknoll, the name by which it is still known. The scene of "Comus is usually spoken of as Maryknoll Valley.

We have ourselves, as just stated, emerged from the wood upon a sufficiently extensive open space, which, as it extends on our right towards the head of the valley, begins to be divided by hedges; while, to the right, it is soon clothed with wood again. Our sudden appearance has roused a small party of wild deer, which dart off till they reach a secure distance, and then turn and scan us with curious eyes. Trees and masses of bush are only scattered here and there over a grassy surface; and this circumstance, the character of the ground, and its significant name

I am not aware of any quality of this kind We are regaled as we pass along with the odors ascribed to the plant agrimony by the early writers of the wild thyme, of a very large size, and of the on herbs. It was looked upon, from a very early wild spikenard. Ferns of the rarest kind, mosses, date, as a sovereign remedy against wounds, and and lichens, abound on the banks of the valley and hence our Anglo-Saxon forefathers called it stic- by the margin of its diminutive stream. All these wyrt, meaning literally, pain-wort (stic was the plants once had their virtues; some of them have Anglo-Saxon name for a sharp shooting pain, fost them entirely, and there are others which, I am whence our stitch — as in the side). This quality it sorry to say, have become mischievous, and will not retains to the present day. Among our peasantry hesitate, on an occasion, to play their tricks upon on the border they use it "to strengthen the blood," travellers. Beware especially, O visitor to the scene as they say that it is a tonic, and also to stanch of "Comus," of descending incautiously these banks, wounds. These qualities appear to have been for their plants, however beautiful they may be to known to animals as well as to mankind. Coles, in the sight, will sometimes conspire together to trip his "Adam in Eden" (1657), tells us, "It is said you over. Even the pretty little bluebells will turn that deere, being wounded, cure themselves by eat-treacherous on occasion, and not hesitate at times to ing hereof."

Wood.

ley of the Sunny Gutter at its farther extremity, the | up; and, in spite of all the screwing, we got down adjoining part of which is commonly called Hay to the bottom of the stocking, as I said jest now. I had n't much cared for the pinching, but it was my poor lass as got pinched the most, and she was a-getting paler and thinner every day, till I could n't abear to see it. I run out o' the house, and down to Jenkins's yard, where I'd been at work last. I soon found Jenkins; and I says to him, “Gover nor," I says, "this won't do, you know; a man can't live upon wind."

The family of Salwey has been settled in this neighborhood, at Richard's Castle and the Moor Park, from a rather remote period, but to whom the Hay Park belonged, at the time when the Earl of Bridgewater was made lord president of Wales, I am not prepared to say. According to the traditional story, as I have heard it told, the Earl's two sons, the Lord Brackley and Sir Thomas Egerton, with their sister, the Lady Alice, were on their way from Herefordshire to their father's court at Ludlow Castle, when they stopped at the Hay Park, and were detained there till night. In crossing through the wood at Ludlow, they lost their way in it, and the lady was for a while separated from her brothers. We, like them, were belated at the Hay Park, and night was already setting in when we left it. A few steps from the house brought us to the wood, and by dint of following wise directions, we escaped their fate, and found our way through it, in spite of

"Dim darkness and this leafy labyrinth."

It was fortunately still too early to expect the appearance of Comus and his band of revellers, and we reached the Hereford Road at Ludford, to reenter Ludlow by a different side from that whence we started, less fatigued than delighted with our day's excursion.

IN JEOPARDY.

I'm a bricklayer, I am; and, what's more, down in the country, where people ain't so particular about keeping trades distinct as they are in the great towns. This may be seen any day in a general shop, where, as one might say, you can get anything, from half a quartern of butter up to a horn lantern; and down again to a hundred of short-cut brads, well, down in the country I've done a bit of a job now and then as a mason; and not so badly neither, I should suppose, for I got pretty well paid considering, and did n't hear more than the usual amount of growlin' arter it was done, which is saying a deal. Ours ain't the most agreeable of lives, and if it warn't for recollecting a little about the dignity of labor, and such-like, one would often grumble more than one does.

"True for you, Bill Stock," he says.

"And a man can't keep his wife upon wind," I says.

66

Right you are, Bill," he says; and he went on and spoke as fair as a man could speak; and said he had n't a job he could put me on, or he would have done it in a minute. "I'm werry sorry, Bill," he says, "but if times don't mend, I tell you what I'm a-going to do."

"What's that?" I says.

"Go up to London," he says; " and if I was a young man like you, I would n't stop starving down here, when they're giving first-class wages up there, and when there's building going on all round, as thick as thick, and good big jobs too: hotels, and railways, and bridges, and all sorts."

I faces round sharp, and walks off home; for when a feller 's hungry and close up, it lays hold on his temper as well as his stummick, more especially when there's somebody belonging to him in the same fix. So I walks off home, where I finds Mary a-lookin' werry red-eyed; and I makes no more ado, but I gets my pipe, and empties the bit o' dust there was in the bottom o' the jar into it, lights up, and sits down aside of Mary, and puts my arm round her, jest as I used in old courting times; and then begins smoking an' thinking. Werry slow as to the fust, and werry fast as to the second; as smokin' costs money, and the dust was dry; whereas thinking came cheap jest then, - and it's sur-prising how yer can think on a empty inside. I suppose it is because there's plenty o' room for the thoughts to work in.

Well, I had n't been settin' above a minute like this, when my lass lays her head on my shoulder, and though she would n't let me see it, I knowed she was a-giving way; but I did n't take no notice. Perhaps I held her a little bit tighter; and there I sat thinking, and watching the thin smoke, till I could see buildings, and scaffolds, and heaps o' Some time ago, it don't matter to you, nor me, nor bricks, and blocks o' stone, and could almost hear yet anybody else, just when it was, work was pre- the ring o' the trowels, and the "sar-jar" o' the big cious slack down our way,-all things considered, I stone saws; and there was the men a-running up ain't a-going to tell you where our way is. A day's and down the ladders, and the gangers a-giving i work a week had been all I'd been able to get for their orders, and all seemed so plain, that I began quite two months; so Mary, that's my wife, used to grow warm. And I keeps on smoking till it to pinch and screw, and screw and pinch, and keep seemed as though I was one of a great crowd o' men on squeezing shilling arter shilling out of the long standing round a little square wooden office place, stocking, till at last it got so light, that one morning and being called in one at a time; and there I could she lets it fall upon the table, where, instead of com- see them a-takin' their six-and-thirty shillings and ing down with a good hearty spang, it fell softly and two pounds apiece, as fast as a clerk could book it. jest like a piece of cotton that was empty. And And then all at once it seemed to fade away like a then, poor lass, she hangs on to my neck, and burst fog in the sun; and I kep' on drawing; but nothing out a-crying that pitiful, that I'm blest if I did n't come, and I found as my pipe was out, and there want my nose blowing every quarter of a minute. was nothing left to light agen. So I knocks the I had n't minded the screwing and pinching; not a ashes out, what there was on 'em, and then I bit of it. First week we went without our pud-breaks the pipe up, bit by bit, and puts all the dings. Well, that was n't much. Second week we pieces in my pocket, - right-hand trousers-pocket. stopped my half-pints o' beer. Third week I put "What for?" says you. my pipe out. Mary kep' on saying that things must Nothin' at all, as I knows on; but that's what I look up soon, and then I should have an ounce of did; and I am a-telling you what happened. Perthe best to make up for it. But things did n't look | haps it was because I felt uncomfortable with noth

Feb. 17, 1866.J

ing to rattle in my pocket. Howsomever, my mind was made up; and brightening up, and looking as cheerful as if I'd six-and-thirty shillings to take on Saturday, I says to her as was by my side,

"Polly, my lass, I'm a-going up to London!" "Going where?" she says, lifting up her head. "London," I says; and then I began to think about what going to London meant. For, mind yer, it did n't mean a chap in a rough jacket making up a bundle in a clean blue handkercher, and then shovin' his stick through the knot and sticking it over his shoulder, and then stuffing his hands in his pockets, and taking the road uppards, whistlin' like a blackbird. No; it meant something else. It meant breaking up a tidy little home as two young folks. common people, in course had been a saving up for years, to make snug; it meant half breaking a poor simple lass's heart to part with this little thing and that little thing; tearing up the nest that took so long a-building, and was allus so snug arter a cold day's work. I looked at the clean little winders, and then at the bright kettle on the shiny black hob, and then at the werry small fire as there was, and then fust at one thing, and then at another, all so clean and neat and homely, and all showing how proud my lass was of 'em all, and then I thought a little more of what going up to London really did mean, and I suppose it must have been through feeling low and faint and poorly, and I'm almost ashamed to tell it, for I 'm such a big strong chap; but truth 's truth.

"Not a ha'porth," he says, turning his back, and going off with the fust one; and I must say as they looked a pretty pair of blacks.

So I stood there for quite five minutes wondering what to do; whether I should go in and ask for myself, or go and try somewheres else. I did n't like to try, arter seeing two men refused. All at once a tall sharp-eyed man comes out of a side place and looks at me quite fierce. Now, my man," he says, "what's your business? What do you want? "Job, sir," says I.

"Then why did n't you come in and ask?" he says.

"Saw two turned back,” I says.

"O, we don't want such as them here," he says, "but there's plenty of work for men who mean it"; and then he looks through me a'most. suppose you do mean it, eh?”

66

"I

Give us hold of a trowel," says I, spitting in both hands.

"Bricklayer?" says he, smiling.
Right," says I.

66

"From the country?" says he.

Yes," says I.

"Work slack there?" says he.
"Awful," says I.

"You'll do," says he. "Here, Jones, put this fellow in number four lot."

If you'll believe me, I could have taken hold of him and hugged him; but I did n't, for I kep' it for Polly.

Well, somehow a blind seemed to come over my eyes, and my head went down upon my knees, and Well, I wonder how many times I've said well, I cried like a school-boy. But it went off, for my since I begun! — I was in work now, and I meant lass was kneeling aside me in a minute, and got my to keep it. Did n't I make the bricks and mortar thick old head upon her shoulder, and began a-doing fly! My hodman did his day's work that day, if he all she could to make believe it was all right, and never did it afore. Then some of the men began she would n't mind a bit, but we'd get on wonder- to take it up, and got to chaffing; one says there'd ful well up there; and so we talked it over for long soon be no work left; and another says, I'd better enough, while she made believe to be so cheerful, have a couple o' Paddies to keep me going, one for and knelt at my side, a-ciphering away,-a-putting bricks, and another for mortar; while one fellow down naught for herself, and a-carrying I don't know makes hisself precious unpleasant, by keeping on gohow much for me,- till I glowed up, under the dis-ing "puff! puff! puff!" like a steam-ingin', because covery that whether work was plenty, or whether work was slack, I, Bill Stock christened William -was rich in my good wife.

That was something like a thought, that was, and seemed to stiffen me up, and put bone and muscle into a fellow till he felt strong as a lion; so we set to talking over the arrangements; and two days arter, Polly and I was in a lodging in London.

Nex' morning I was up at five, and made myself smart; not fine, but clean, and looking as if I warn't afraid of work; and I finds my way to one o' the big workshops, where the bell was a-ringing for six o'clock, and the men was a-scuffling in; while a chap with a book was on the look-out to time the late ones, for stopping on pay-day out of their wages, - which is but fair, yer know, for if two hundred men lost a quarter of an hour apiece in a week, it would come to something stiff in a year. Well, there was a couple more chaps like me standing at the gate, come to see if they could get took on; and one of 'em slips in, and comes out again directly a-swearing and growling like anything, and then t'other goes in, and he comes out a-swearing too, and then I feels my heart go sinking down ever so low. So I says to the fust,

"Any chance of a job?" I says.

I worked so fast. But I let them chaff as long as
they liked; and bime-by I comes to be working
alongside of my steam-ingin' friend, and jest as he 'd
been going it a little extra, I says to him quietly, -
"Ever been out o' work, matey?"
"Not to signify," he says.

"'Cause if ever you are, and come down werry close to ground, you'll be as glad to handle the trowel again as I am." He did n't puff any more that day, not as I heerd.

London work was something fresh to me. I used to think that I'd been about some tidy buildings down our way, but what was the tidiest on 'em to the London jobs I was put on! Jobs where the scaffolding must have cost hundreds upon hundreds of pounds more than the house, land, and everything else put together, of the biggest place I had ever worked upon. I used, too, to think I was pretty strong in the head; but I soon began to sing small here, - specially when I had been up about a week and was put on at a big hotel. Right up so high that one turned quite creepy, and used to get thinking of what would be the consequences if a sharp puff of wind come and upset one's balance. I could never have believed, neither, that such a Jacob's Ladder of scaffold-poles could have been built

"Go to "somewhere, he says, cutting up rough; up to stand without crushing and snapping those at

so I asks t'other one.

Any chance of a job?" I says.

the bottom like so many reeds or tobacco-pipes; but I suppose them as builds them knows best what

should be done, and what they 'll bear. But though I did not like it much, I took good care not to mention it to my lass, for I knew she'd have been on the fidget all day if I had told her.

By degrees I got to stand it all pretty well, and we began to feel a bit settled in our one room. Not that we much liked it, but then it was werry pleasant to go in the crowd on pay-day and draw your week's wage, -good wage too, jest as I had seen it when settin' in my own place at home. We still called it home, for we could n't get to feel that we were at home in London, and Polly she said she never should, after having a little house of her own; but, as there was only our two selves, we made things pretty comfortable.

The big hotel was getting on at a tremendious rate, for there was a strong body on us at work, and it used to make me think and think of the loads upon loads of stuff the hotel swallowed up, and how much more it would take before it was finished. One day when I was bricklaying up at the top, -I don't know how many feet from the ground, and I never used to care to look to see, for fear of turning giddy, one day it came on to blow a regular gale, and blew at last so hard that the scaffold shook and quivered, while wherever there was a loose rope, it rattled and beat against the poles as if it was impatient of being tied there, and wanted to break loose

and be off.

block at the end, through which ran a rope for
drawing light things up and down to the scaffold.
For an instant I dared not move; then, raising
myself, I went hand over hand towards the pulley,
and in another instant I should have grasped it,
when I heard a rushing sound, and the creaking of
a wheel, as the rope went spinning through, and
was gone: the weight of the longer side having
dragged the other through. As I hung, I distinctly
heard it fall, perhaps a hundred and fifty feet.
As the rope fell, and I hung there, I could hear a
regular shriek from those below; but nobody stirred
to my assistance, for I was beyond help then; but I
seemed to grow stronger with the danger, though
my arms felt as if they were being wrenched out of
their sockets, and my nerves as if they were torn
with hot irons. Sobbing for breath, I crept in again
till I was over the stage first; then close into the
face of the building; and there I hung. Once I
tried to get some hold with my feet, but the smooth
bricks let my toes slip over them directly. Then I
tried to get a leg over the pole, so as to climb up
and sit there; but the time was gone by for that.
I had hung too long, and was now growing weaker
every moment.

I can't describe what I felt. All I know is, that it was horrible, and that long afterwards I used to jump up in bed with a scream; for so sure as I was a little out o' sorts, came a dream of hanging to that scaffold-pole, expecting every moment to be one's last.

It blew at last so werry hard, that I should have been precious glad of an excuse to get down; but I could n't well leave my work, and the old hands I can't say, either, how long I hung; but feeling at did n't seem to mind it much, so I kep' at it. When-length that I was going, I made one last try for it. I ever the wind blows now, and I shut my eyes, I can thought of my poor lass, and seemed to see her a-lookcall it all back again: the creaking and quivering ing at me in a widder's cap; and then I clenched my of the poles, the rattling of the boards, the howling teeth hard, and tried to get on to where the end of and whistling of the gale as it swept savagely by, the pole was fastened. I got one hand over the hard in a rage because it could not sweep us away. bricks, and hooked my fingers, and held on; then I got the other hand over, and tried to climb up, as a cheer from below encouraged me; but my feet and knees slipped over the smooth bricks, and in spite of every effort they hung down straight at last, and I felt a sharp quiver run through me as slowly, slowly, my hands opened, my fingers straightened, and, with eyes blinded and bloodshot, I fell.

A high wind is pretty hard to deal with, sometimes, on the ground; and I have seen folks pretty hard driven to turn a corner. So it may be guessed what sort of fun it is right up on a spidery scaffold, where a man is expected to work with both hands, and hold on by nothing, and that, too, where a single step backards would be- there, it's a thing as

allus makes me nervous to talk about.

It was getting to be somewhere about half past three, and I was working hard, so as to keep from thinking about the storm, when all at once I happened to turn my head, and see that the men was a-scuffling down the ladders as hard as they could go. And then, before I had time to think, there was a loud crash, and a large piece of the scaffolding gave way, and swept with it poles, boards, and bricks, right into the open space below.

- Fell what seemed to be an enormous distance, though it was only to the next stage, where boards, bricks, and tools, shaken by the concussion, went with a crash below. The deal planks upon which I lay, still kep' in their places, but with their ends jolted so near the edge that it seemed to me that the least motion on my part would make them slip, and send me off again. I was too exhausted and frightened to move, and lay there for some time, not knowing whether I was much hurt or not. The I leaped up at a pole which projected from the first thing as recalled me to myself was the voice roof above me, just above my head, caught it, and of a man who came up a ladder close at hand; and hung suspended, just as the boards upon which II could see that he had a rope and pulley with him, stood but an instant before gave way, and fell on to the next stage, some twenty feet below. Tightly clasping the rough fir-pole, I clung for life.

Think? I did think. I thought hundreds of things in a few seconds, as I shut my eyes and began to pray, for I felt as I could not hold on long, and I knew as I should fall first on the stage below, when the boards would either give way, or shoot me off again with a spring, and then I knew there would be a crowd round something upon the ground, and the police coming with a stretcher.

66

Creep out, mate, and come down the rope," cried a voice from below. I turned my head, so that, I could just see that the pole I was hanging to had

a

which he soon had hooked on to the ladder.
"Hold on, mate," he says. "If I throw you the
end of the rope, can you tie it round you ?

"I'll try," I says. So he makes a noose, and pulling enough rope through the block, he shies it to me, but it was n't far enough. So he tries again and again, and at last I manages to ketch hold on it. But now, as soon as I tried to move, it seemed as if something stabbed me in the side, and, what was more, the least thing would, I found, send the boards down, and of course me with them.

"Tell them to hold tight by the rope," says I; and he passed the word, while I got both arms through the noose, and told him to tighten it, which