Page:The Children of the New Forest - 1847 - Marryat.djvu/162

 Humphrey helped Edward to put the venison in the cart, and they returned to the cottage, which was not more than three miles off. Humphrey told Edward the result of his journey, and then proposed that Edward should stop at home for a few days and help him with the new enclosure. To this Edward cheerfully consented; and as soon as they arrived at the cottage, and Humphrey had had his breakfast, they took their axes and went out to fell at a cluster of small spruce fir about a mile off.  

", Humphrey, what do you propose to do?"

"This," replied Humphrey: "I have marked out three acres or thereabouts of the land running in a straight line behind the garden. There is not a tree on it, and it is all good feeding ground. What I intend to do is to enclose it with the spruce fir posts and rails that we are about to cut down, and then set a hedge upon a low bank which I shall raise all round inside the rails. I know where there are thousands of seedling-thorns, which I shall take up in the winter, or early in the spring, to put in, as the bank will be ready for them by that time."

"Well, that's all very good; but I fear it will be a long while before you have such a quantity of land dug up."

"Yes, of course it will; but Edward, I have plenty of manure to spare, and I shall put it all over this land, and then it will become a rich pasture, and also an earlier pasture than what we can get from the forest, and will be very handy to turn the cows and the calves upon; or even Billy, if we want him in a hurry."

"All that is very true," replied Edward, "so that it will be useful at all events, if you do not dig it up."

"Indeed it will," replied Humphrey; "I only wish it were six acres instead of three."

"I can't say I do," replied Edward, laughing, "you are too 