it. Now there was an elm that stood out from the
hedge a little, almost at the top of the meadow, not above
five-and-twenty yards from the other hedge that bounded the field. Two
mounds could therefore be commanded by any one in ambush behind the elm,
and all the angular corner of the mead was within range.

It was not far from the house; but the ground sank into a depression
there, and the ridge of it behind shut out everything except just the
roof of the tallest hayrick. As one sat on the sward behind the elm,
with the back turned on the rick and nothing in front but the tall elms
and the oaks in the other hedge, it was quite easy to fancy it the verge
of the prairie with the backwoods close by.

The rabbits had scratched the yellow sand right out into the grass--it
is always very much brighter in colour where they have just been at
work--and the fern, already almost yellow too, shaded the mouths of
their buries. Thick bramble bushes grew out from the mound and filled
the space between it and the elm: there were a few late flowers on them
still, but the rest were hardening into red sour berries. Westwards, the
afternoon sun, with all his autumn heat, shone full against the hedge
and into the recess, and there was not the shadow of a leaf for shelter
on that side.

The gun was on the turf, and the little hoppers kept jumping out of the
grass on to the stock: once their king, a grasshopper, alighted on it
and rested, his green limbs tipped with red rising above his back. About
the distant wood and the hills there was a soft faint haze, which is
what Nature finishes her pictures with. Something in the atmosphere
which made it almost visible: all the trees seemed to stand in a liquid
light--the sunbeams were suspended in the air instead of passing
through. The butterflies even were very idle in the slumberous warmth;
and the great green dragon-fly rested on a leaf, his tail arched a
little downwards, just as he puts it when he wishes to stop suddenly in
his flight.

The broad glittering trigger-guard got quite hot in the sun, and the
stock was warm when I felt it every now and then. The grain of the
walnut-wood showed plainly through the light polish: it was not
varnished like the stock of the double-barrel they kept padlocked to the
rack over the high mantelpiece indoors. Still you could see the varnish.
It was of a rich dark horse-chestnut colour, and yet so bright and clear
that if held close you could see your fac