Pleasant folk, who there do dwell, calling their existence “life”, and on the whole enjoying it more than many of us do; forasmuch as they know their neighbours far better than themselves, and perceive each cousinʼs need of trial, and console him when he gets it. Not but what we ourselves partake the first and second advantages, only we miss the fruition of them, by turning our backs on the sufferer. Nowelhurst village is not on the main road, but keeps a straggling companionship with a quiet parish highway which requires much encouragement. This little highway does its best to blink the many difficulties, or, if that may not be, to compromise them, and establish a pleasant footing upon its devious wandering course from the Lymington road to Ringwood. Here it goes zig to escape the frown of a heavy–browed crest of furzery, and then it comes zag when no soul expects it, because a little stream has babbled at it. It even seems to bob and dip, or jump, as the case may be, for fear of prying into an old oakʼs storey or dusting a piece of grass land. The hard–hearted traveller who lives express, and is bound for the train at Ringwood, curses, too often, up hill and down dale, the quiet laneʼs inconsistency. What right has any road to do anything but go straight on end to its purpose? What decent road stops for a gossip with flowers—flowers overhanging the steep ascent, or eavesdropping on the rabbit–holes? And as for the beauty of ferns—confound them, they shelter the horse–fly—that horrible forest–fly, whose tickling no civilized horse can endure. Even locusts he has heard of as abounding in the New Forest; and if a swarm of them comes this very hot weather, good–bye to him, horse and trap, newest patterns, sweet plaid, and chaste things.