Produced by Malcolm Farmer and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) TRANSCRIBER'S NOTE: In a few places the book has the letter T printed in a sans-serif font to indicate the shape of the letter. This has been reproduced as [T] below. THE HILLS AND THE VALE _All rights reserved_ THE HILLS AND THE VALE BY RICHARD JEFFERIES WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY EDWARD THOMAS LONDON: DUCKWORTH & CO. 3 HENRIETTA STREET, COVENT GARDEN 1909 TO JOHN WILLIAMS OF WAUN WEN CONTENTS PAGE INTRODUCTION ix CHOOSING A GUN 1 SKATING 22 MARLBOROUGH FOREST 27 VILLAGE CHURCHES 35 BIRDS OF SPRING 43 THE SPRING OF THE YEAR 54 VIGNETTES FROM NATURE 70 A KING OF ACRES 79 THE STORY OF SWINDON 104 UNEQUAL AGRICULTURE 134 VILLAGE ORGANIZATION 151 THE IDLE EARTH 207 AFTER THE COUNTY FRANCHISE 224 THE WILTSHIRE LABOURER 247 ON THE DOWNS 270 THE SUN AND THE BROOK 280 NATURE AND ETERNITY 284 THE DAWN 306 INTRODUCTION