e in it. Behind it the grain of
the wood was just perceptible; especially at the grip, where hard hands
had worn it away somewhat. The secret of that varnish is lost--like that
of the varnish on the priceless old violins.

But you could feel the wood more in my gun: so that it was difficult to
keep the hand off it, though the rabbits would not come out; and the
shadowless recess grew like a furnace, for it focussed the rays of the
sun. The heat on the sunny side of a thick hedge between three and four
in the afternoon is almost tropical if you remain still, because the air
is motionless: the only relief is to hold your hat loose; or tilt it
against your head, the other edge of the brim on the ground. Then the
grass-blades rise up level with the forehead. There is a delicious smell
in growing grass, and a sweetness comes up from the earth.

Still it got hotter and hotter; and it was not possible to move in the
least degree, lest a brown creature sitting on the sand at the mouth of
his hole, and hidden himself by the fern, should immediately note it.
And Orion was waiting in the rickyard for the sound of the report, and
very likely the shepherd too. We knew that men in Africa, watched by
lions, had kept still in the sunshine till, reflected from the rock, it
literally scorched them, not daring to move; and we knew all about the
stoicism of the Red Indians. But Ulysses was ever my pattern and model:
that man of infinite patience and resource.

So, though the sun might burn and the air become suffocating in that
close corner, and the quivering line of heat across the meadow make the
eyes dizzy to watch, yet not a limb must be moved. The black flies came
in crowds; but they are not so tormenting if you plunge your face in the
grass, though they titillate the back of the hand as they run over it.
Under the bramble bush was a bury that did not look much used; and once
or twice a great blue fly came out of it, the buzz at first sounding
hollow and afar off and becoming clearer as it approached the mouth of
the hole. There was the carcass of a dead rabbit inside no doubt.

A humble-bee wandering along--they are restless things--buzzed right
under my hat, and became entangled in the grass by my ear. Now we knew
by experience in taking their honey that they could sting sharply if
irritated, though good-tempered by nature. How he 'burred' and buzzed
and droned!--till by-and-by, crawling up the back of my head, he found
an open s