LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume VIII, Issue 1050, 8 November 1877, Page 3

LITERATURE.

A DAY IN BRIAR WOOD. That day, and its events, can never go out of my memory. There are epochs in life that lie upon the heart for ever, marking the past like stones placed for retrospect. They may he of pleasure, or they may be of pain : but there they are, in that great store-field locked up within us, to be recalled at will as long as life shall last. It was in August, and one of the hottest days of that hot month. A brilliant day : the sun shining with never a cloud to soften it, the sky intensely blue. Just the day for a picnic, provided you had shade. Shade we had. Briar Wood abounds in it. For the towering trees are dark, and their foliage thick. Here and there the wood opens, and you come upon the sweetest little bits of meadow-land scenery that a painter's eye could desire. Patches of green glade smooth enough for fairy revels ; undulating banks draped with ferns and fragrant with sweet wild flowers; dells dark and dim to roam in and fancy yourself out of the world. Bmr Wood belonged to Sir John Whitney. It was a good length but narrow, terminating at one end in the entangled coppice which we had dashed through that long past day when we played at hare and hounds; and poor Charles A 7 an Rheyn had died, in that same coppice, of the running. The other and best end, up where those lonely glades lie sheltered, extends itself nearly to the lands pertaining to Vale Farm —if you have not forgotten that place. The wood was a rare resort for poachers and gipsies, as well as picnic parties, and every now and again Sir John would declare that it should be rooted up. We were staying at Whitney Hall. Miss Deveen was there on a visit (Cattledon , included, c f course), and Sir Joha wrote over to invite us for a few days to meet her : the Squire and Mrs Todhetley, I and Tod. And. there we were, enjoying ourselves like anything. It was Sir John himself who proposed the picnio. He called it a gipsy-party : indeed, the word " picnic" had hardly come in then. The weather was so hot indoors that Sir John thought it might be an agreeable change to live a day in the open air, and lie in the shade and look up at the blue sky through the flickering trees. So the cook was told to provide fowls and ham and pigeon pies, with apple puffs, salads, and area to s.

'The large carriage and four-wheeled chaise shall take the ladies,' observed Sir John, ' and I daresay they can make room for me and the Squire amidst them ; it's a short distance, and we shan't mind a little crowding. You y< ling men can walk.' ir'o it wa3 ordained. The carriages started, and we after them, William and Henry Whitney disputing as to which was the best route to take : Bill holding out for that by Goose Brook, Harry for that by the river. It ended in our dividing : I went with Bill his way; the rest of the young Whitneys and Tod the other, with Featherston'B nephew; an overgrown young giant of seventeen, about six feet, who had been told he might come. Barring the heat, it was a glorious walk; just as it was a glorious day. Passing Goose

Brook (a little stream meandering through the trees, with a rustic bridge across it: though -why it should hold that name I never knew) we soon came coppice at the end of the wood. 'lvow,' said Bill to me, ' shall we plunge into the wood at once, and so onwards right through it; or skirt round by the Granary V * The wood will be the shadiest.' 'And pleasante9t. I'm not at all sure, though, Johnny, that I shan't lose my way in it. It has all kinds of bewildering tricks and turnings.' 4 Nevei mind if you do. We can find it again.' ' We should have'been safe'to'meet some of those Leonards had we gone by the Granary,' observed Bill, as we turned into the wood, where just at present the trees were thin, ' and they might have been wanting to join us, pushing fellows that they are ! I don't like them.' 1 Who are the Leonards ? Who were they before they came here ? ' Old Leonard made a mint of money in India, and his sons are spending it for him as fast as they can. One day when he was talking to my father, he hinted that he had taken this remote place, the Granary, and bronght them down here, to get them out of the fast lives they we e leading in London. He got afraid, he said.' ' Have the sons no professions ?' ' Don't seem to have. Or anything else that's good—money excepted.' ' What do they do with their time.' ' Anything. Idle it away. Keep dogs, and shoot, and fish, and lounge and smoke, and—Halloa ! look yonder, Johnny !' Briar Wood had no straight and direct road through it; but plenty of small paths and byways and turnings and windings, that might bring you, by good luck, to landing at last; or might take you. unconsciously back whence you came. Emerging from a part, where the trees grew dark and dense and thick, upon one of those delightfful elades I spoke of before, we saw what I took to be a small gipsy encampment. A fire of sticks, with a kettle upon it, smoked upon the ground; beside it sat a young woman and child; a few tinwaresj tied together, lay in a corner, and some rabbit skins were stretched out to dry on the branches of trees. Up started the woman, and came swiftly towards us. A regular gipsy with the purple-black hair, the yellow skin, and the large gleamiDg eyes. It was a beautiful young face, but worn, and thin and anxious. I Do you want your fortunes told, my good young gentlemen ? I can ' ' Not a bit of it,' interrupted Bill. 'Go back to your fire. We are only passing through.' '1 can read the lines of your hands unerringly, my pretty sirs. I can forewarn you of evil, and prepare you for good.' 'Now look you here,' cried Bill, turning upon her good-humouredly, as she followed us up with a lot of the like stuff, ' I can forewarn you of it, unless you are content to let us alone. This wood belongs to Sir John Whitney, as I daresay all your fraternity know, and hi 3 keepers wage war against you when they find you are encamped here, and that I am sure you know. Mind your own affairs, and you may stay here in peace, for me : k«-ep on bothering us, and I go straight to Bednal 'and give him a hint. lam Sir John's son.' He threw her a sixpence, and the woman's face changed as she caught it. The persuasive smile vanished as if by magic, giving place to a look of anxious pain. It struck Bill so greatly as to arrest him. (To be continued.')