Page:Walks in the Black Country and its green border-land.pdf/379

Rh, but still as if Nature herself had planted all the trees at her own sweet will. There were groves with openings, like tubes of her telescope, directed towards the beautiful landscapes that stretched far outward and softened into the mist of blue and gold under the horizon on every side. As far as the eye could see, the space was filled with baronial parks with no visible roads or boundary lines between them. This truly was the Green Country of Staffordshire; still it is possible that it would not have been so green and beautiful, and peaceful and quiet, were it not for the fire, smoke, sweat, and thunder of the Black Country of the county.

The next day the company made themselves up into different parties, for different rides and walks about the park and neighbourhood. I had the pleasure of making one of the company which the Earl took in his carriage to visit some of the parks and other interesting localities a few miles distant, the most unique and interesting of which was Chartley, the seat of the Ferrers family. Here I saw the greatest contrast that I ever witnessed in England—Nature in petticoat and Nature in her court-dress. Our drive was between parks and plantations and grounds of high cultivation until we came to the wildest, boggiest, roughest stretch of land you could think possible to exist in the heart of a