English country life by Martingale Author:James White Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: THE WOOD SIDE. Ac as he out of London wente in a tyde, A gret erl him kepte ther in a wood side. The sweetest spotte of all. R. Gloucester. No lyf holy... more » as dremytes Than wonnede wyle in wodes. Piers Plouhman. Here also playing on the grassie greene, Woodgogs, and satyres, and swift dryades, With many fairies oft were dancing scene. SPENCER. Virgile. Gnat. Amid the many delightful scenes with which rural life abounds, in whatever direction the attention of the close observer is turned, there are few fraught with greater beauty, with more enticing loveliness, and with more harmonious contrast, than those which are presented at the Wood Side—along the margin of those magnificent masses of foliage which are piled up to a height not only commanding an extensive view of the surrounding country, but formingof themselves one of its most attractive ornaments and most noble characteristics. This is particularly the case during that delightful period of the year, when the glory of summer is spread over the land, and all objects which meet the eye are attired in robes of varied hues —without the prevalence of any symptom of decay—hanging out a mass of blossoms on the one hand, or loaded with fruit on the other. If, even during the hunting season, the locality in question be viewed by the eye of the staunch and intrepid follower of hounds in pursuit of the wily fox, with feelings of peculiar satisfaction, while the pack is drawing its most secret recesses, or while the whipper-in is on the watch to mark in what direction the object of pursuit, pressed by the hounds, breaks away at once, or, stealing silently forth, doubles and twists with the view of eluding the vigilance of his determined pursuers by throwing them off the scent, and causing a perplexing check;—if a like...« less