we were in the green
pathway when some one suddenly spoke from behind, and, turning, there
was a man in a velveteen jacket who had just stepped out of the bushes.
The keeper was pleasant enough and readily allowed us to handle his
gun--a very good weapon, though a little thin at the muzzle--for a man
likes to see his gun admired. He said there were finer nuts in a valley
he pointed out, and then carefully instructed us how to get back into
the waggon track without returning by the same path. An old barn was the
landmark; and, with a request from him not to break the bushes, he left
us.

Down in the wooded vale we paused. The whole thing was now clear: the
hare in the wire was a trap laid for the 'gips' whose camp was below.
The keeper had been waiting about doubtless where he could command the
various tracks up the hill, had seen us come that way, and did not wish
us to return in the same direction; because if the 'gip' saw any one at
all he would not approach his snare. Whether the hare had actually been
caught by the wire, or had been put in by the keeper, it was not easy to
tell.

We wandered on in the valley wood, going from bush to bush, little
heeding whither we went. There are no woods so silent as the nut-tree;
there is scarce a sound in them at that time except the occasional
rustle of a rabbit, and the 'thump, thump' they sometimes make
underground in their buries after a sudden fright. So that the keen
plaintive whistle of a kingfisher was almost startling. But we soon
found the stream in the hollow. Broader than a brook and yet not quite a
river, it flowed swift and clear, so that every flint at the bottom was
visible. The nut-tree bushes came down to the edge: the ground was too
firm for much rush or sedge; the streams that come out of the chalk are
not so thickly fringed with vegetation as others.

Some little way along there was a rounded sarsen boulder not far from
shore, whose brown top was so nearly on a level with the surface that at
one moment the water just covered it, and the next left it exposed. By
it we spied a trout; but the hill above gave 'Velvet' the command of the
hollow; and it was too risky even to think of. After that the nuts were
tame; there was nothing left but to turn homewards. As for
trout-fishing, there is nothing so easy. Take the top joint off the rod,
and put the wire on the second, which is stronger, fill the basket, and
replace the fly. There were fellows who used to padd