ng. He was soon
out of sight.

At noon the following day, the weather still being bright and genial,
I went to Crux Easton, a hilltop village consisting of some low farm
buildings, cottages, and a church not much bigger than a cottage. A
great house probably once existed here, as the hill has a noble avenue
of limes, which it wears like a comb or crest. On the lower slope of the
hill, the old unkept hedges were richer in colour than in most places,
owing to the abundance of the spindle-wood tree, laden with its loose
clusters of flame-bright, purple-pink and orange berries.

Here I saw a pretty thing: a cock cirl-bunting, his yellow breast
towards me, sitting quietly on a large bush of these same brilliant
berries, set amidst a mass of splendidly coloured hazel leaves, mixed
with bramble and tangled with ivy and silver-grey traveller's-joy. An
artist's heart would have leaped with joy at the sight, but all his
skill and oriental colours would have made nothing of it, for all
visible nature was part of the picture, the wide wooded earth and the
blue sky beyond and above the bird, and the sunshine that glorified all.

On the other side of the hedge there were groups of fine old beech trees
and, strange to see, just beyond the green slope and coloured trees,
was the great whiteness of the fog which had advanced thus far and now
appeared motionless. I went down and walked by the side of the bank
of mist, feeling its clammy coldness on one cheek while the other was
fanned by the warm bright air. Seen at a distance of a couple of hundred
yards, the appearance was that of a beautiful pearly-white cloud resting
upon the earth. Many fogs had I seen, but never one like this, so
substantial-looking, so sharply defined, standing like a vast white wall
or flat-topped hill at the foot of the green sunlit slope! I had the
fancy that if I had been an artist in sculpture, and rapid modeller, by
using the edge of my hand as a knife I could have roughly carved out a
human figure, then drawing it gently out of the mass proceeded to press
and work it to a better shape, the shape, let us say, of a beautiful
woman. Then, if it were done excellently, and some man-mocking deity, or
power of the air, happened to be looking on, he would breathe life and
intelligence into it, and send it, or her, abroad to mix with human kind
and complicate their affairs. For she would seem a woman and would be
like some women we have known, beautiful with blue