Page:Life of Thomas Hardy - Brennecke.pdf/43

 haired representative of a London conservative daily newspaper is there before you.

"It's good to be in a village with a warm blacksmith's forge at the heart of it," he remarks, oracularly. "I'm glad I got my critique off this afternoon . . . Clement Shorter wants to offer consolation in advance to Hardy on the rough handling he expects our papers to give the play—fancy that! As for me, well, I don't think Hardy's verses have any chewne to speak of—no chewne at all, really. Browning is often out of chewne, you know, but Hardy—no chewne, no chewne at all!"

With this echo of the literary standards of George Moore ringing through, your brain, you retire to your unwarmed sheets, cursing the cold, cursing Ebury Street. . ..

You are out early the next morning. It has become colder, piercingly cold, but quite clear. You walk briskly southward along the straight hard coaching road, the old Bath-and-Bristol highway. Your train doesn't leave for a few hours; you contentedly leave the town behind.

In thirty-five minutes you look across the country to your right. There is a huge mound, almost a mountain, shutting out a great portion of the sky. You walk on. Presently a by-road turns off the highway towards the west; you follow it down a vale, passing a miniature edition of St. Peter's Church. Then over and under a few stiles. Before you is now a steeply ascending path. A post bears a weather-beaten sign:

CAUTION: ANY PERSON FOUND REMOVING RELICS, SKELETONS, STONES, POTTERY,