"
"True," I returned, with indifference.
But he was not to be put off by my sudden coldness, and he
proceeded to inform me that he had just returned from
Salisbury Plain, that it had been noised abroad that ten
thousand men were wanted by the War Office to work in forming
new camps. On arrival he found it was not so--it was all a
lie--men were not wanted--and he was now on his way to
Andover, penniless and hungry and--
By the time he had got to that part of his story we were some
distance apart, as I had remained standing still while he,
thinking me still close behind, had gone on picking
blackberries and talking. He was soon out of sight.
At noon the following day, the weather still being bright and
genial, I went to Crux Easton, a hilltop village consisting of
some low farm buildings, cottages, and a church not much
bigger than a cottage. A great house probably once existed
here, as the hill has a noble avenue of limes, which it wears
like a comb or crest. On the lower slope of the hill, the old
unkept hedges were richer in colour than in most places, owing
to the abundance of the spindle-wood tree, laden with its
loose clusters of flame-bright, purple-pink and orange
berries.
Here I saw a pretty thing: a cock cirl-bunting, his yellow
breast towards me, sitting quietly on a large bush of these
same brilliant berries, set amidst a mass of splendidly
coloured hazel leaves, mixed with bramble and tangled with ivy
and silver-grey traveller's-joy.
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