at
the glorious prospect of hill and dale and miniature mountain, here grey
and sparkling, there flushed as if with the golden sheen of blossoming
furze, while the lower slopes were of the magnificent purple of the
abundant heath.

"Beautiful!" cried the boy ecstatically. "I am glad that we came up
here to stay. So is dear old uncle. He's revelling in the specimens he
gets, and we shall have another jolly night with the microscope. He'll
give me a lecture upon all the little Latin beggars he pops into his
bottle, and another for being so stupid in not recollecting all their
cranky names. Never mind; it is jolly. Pity it isn't later, for then
there'd be plenty of blackberries and whorts. I dare say there'd be
lots of the little tiny button mushrooms, too, in the lower parts among
the soft grass. But what's the use of grumbling? Uncle says that I am
never satisfied, and that I am always restless, and I suppose it's
because I am a boy. Well, I can't help being a boy," he mused
thoughtfully. "I might have been a girl. Well, girls are restless too.
I say, what's that?"

He shaded his eyes again and gazed at a speck of something that looked
bright scarlet in the distance, and then not very far away he made out
another, and again another speck or blotch of bright red. "Now, I
wonder what's growing there," muttered the boy. "I don't remember
anything scarlet growing and blowing. Poppies? No, I don't think they
are poppies. They are at the edges of the cornfields, and there are no
cornfields up here."

He fixed his eyes more intently upon the scarlet specks, and then burst
out laughing.

"Well, they are not poppies," he said aloud. "Poppies don't move, and
those are moving, sure enough. There, one of them has gone behind that
block of stone. Pooh, how stupid! Why, of course!"

He jerked himself round to look in another direction, so sharply that
his creel swung out for a moment from the strap, and came back against
his hip with a bang, as he stood with his back to the sun, gazing at a
distant grey, gloomy-looking pile of stone building, and then nodded his
head with satisfaction.

"Poppies, indeed! My grandmother! That's what they are. Soldiers from
over yonder. Part of the guard from the great prison, I suppose. Oh,
poor beggars! How miserable, when you come to think of it--shut up
yonder in that great gloomy place, for I don't suppose they let them
come out much without soldiers to watch them