"And also the said Roger Ley under colour of a lease, which he himself with the residue of his consorts made of certain tenements, parcel of the said lands and tenements, unto certain of the children of the said Ley wherein he had cunningly inserted parcel of the same common ground contrary to the knowledge and weeting of the residue of his cofeoffees or some of them had entered upon parcel of the said common ground called Hatchmoor or lying in Hatchmoor, wherein the said complainants, having burgages within the said town, and all other that dwell in the ancient burgages or dwelling-houses within the said town, ought and had used time out of mind to have common of pasture, without any colour of lawful right had enclosed and tilled two parcels thereof containing about fourteen or sixteen acres and made divers leases thereof to persons unknown, and had shut up an ancient lane or way, commonly called Dark Lane, leading from the said town to the said common of Hatchmoor, through which the inhabitants of the said town had always time out of mind, until the said enclosure, used go and drive to the said common, to the great hindrance, hurt, and damage of the said complainants, and to the disinherison of the said town for ever." That towns, and even great towns, abode by the traditions of country life, is now abundantly manifest, but the indications above given shed only partial light on rural conditions in their earliest and fullest form. These will furnish the theme of the following chapter, which, it is hoped, will furnish the clue to much that is mysterious in the data thus far supplied. RURAL CHAPTER XVIII COUNTRY PROPER The state of things exhibited in the previous chapter is essentially transitional. What we have there seen is the town emerging out of the country, or, to put it another way, the country merging, through the principle of attraction, into the focus of the town. This method of viewing the subject is necessarily partial and incomplete. The existence of a common in association with a town or village or group of villages is not a self-evident proposition, to be taken for granted. It is clearly part of a system which it now becomes our business to investigate.