But when it
comes to a man tramping twenty or thirty miles a day on an
empty belly, looking for work which he can't find, he doesn't
see it quite in the same way."
"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. An artist's heart would have
leaped with joy at the sight, but all his skill and oriental
colours would have made nothing of it, for all visible nature
was part of the picture, the wide wooded earth and the blue
sky beyond and above the bird, and the sunshine that glorified
all.
On the other side of the hedge there were groups of fine old
beech trees and, strange to see, just beyond the green slope
and coloured trees, was the great whiteness of the fog which
had advanced thus far and now appeared motionless. I went
down and walked by the side of the bank of mist, feeling its
clammy coldness on one cheek while the other was fanned by the
warm bright air. Seen at a distance of a couple of hundred
yards, the appearance was that of a beautiful pearly-white
cloud resting upon the earth.
