Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/256



AVING made so recently a walk among the muddy and sooty occupations of the brick-makers and nailers. I thought it would be an agreeable alternation for writer and reader to make the next excursion among rural and historical sceneries. So about the middle of November, on a day brimful of the rich glory of an autumn sun, Capern and myself mounted staff, and commenced our walk at the antique, interesting village of Shiffnal, which a traveller might think indigenous to Scandinavia both in name and aspect. But before he has walked half the length of one of its narrow and winding streets, he will find that the people speak English, and that the children are as young at five or ten as those of the most modern-looking town at the same age. Then there is a harmony in the whole aspect of the place which few villages of the same