lengthening emphasis on the 'no,' come ludicrously near to represent
the notes. The ploughboy understood them very well, for to have only a
hunch of bread and little or no cheese was often his own case.

Two meadows distant from the lower woods of the Chace there is what
seems from afar a remarkably wide hedge irregularly bordered with
furze. But on entering a gateway in it you find a bridge over a brook,
which for some distance flows with a hedge on either side. The low
parapet of the bridge affords a seat--one of Cicely's favourite
haunts--whence in spring it is pleasant to look up the brook; for the
banks sloping down from the bushes to the water are yellow with
primroses, and hung over with willow boughs. As the brook is straight,
the eye can see under these a long way up; and presently a kingfisher,
bright with azure and ruddy hues, comes down the brook, flying but
just above the surface on which his reflection travels too. He perches
for a moment on a branch close to the bridge, but the next sees that
he is not alone, and instantly retreats with a shrill cry.

A moorhen ventures forth from under the arches, her favourite
hiding-place, and feeds among the weeds by the shore, but at the least
movement rushes back to shelter. A wood-pigeon comes over, flying
slowly; he was going to alight on the ash tree yonder, but suddenly
espying some one under the cover of the boughs increases his pace and
rises higher. Two bright bold bullfinches pass; they have a nest
somewhere in the thick hawthorn. A jay, crossing from the fir
plantations, stays awhile in the hedge, and utters his loud harsh
scream like the tearing of linen. For a few hours the winds are still
and the sunshine broods warm over the mead. It is a delicious snatch
of spring.

Every now and then a rabbit emerges from the burrows which are
scattered thickly along the banks, and, passing among the primroses,
goes through the hedge into the border of furze, and thence into the
meadow-grass. Some way down the brook they are so numerous as to have
destroyed the vegetation on the banks, excepting a few ferns, by their
constant movements and scratching of the sand; so that there is a
small warren on either side of the water. It is said that they
occasionally swim across the broad brook, which is much too wide to
jump; but I have never seen such a thing but once. A rabbit already
stung with shot and with a spaniel at his heels did once leap at the
brook here, and, f