ning under
the songs of the larks. The stealing out had been fun, but with the
freedom of the tops the sense of conspiracy ceased, and gave place to
dumbness.

"We've made one blooming error," said Fleur, when they had gone half a
mile. "I'm hungry."

Jon produced a stick of chocolate. They shared it and their tongues
were loosened. They discussed the nature of their homes and previous
existences, which had a kind of fascinating unreality up on that lonely
height. There remained but one thing solid in Jon's past--his mother;
but one thing solid in Fleur's--her father; and of these figures, as
though seen in the distance with disapproving faces, they spoke little.

The Down dipped and rose again towards Chanctonbury Ring; a sparkle of
far sea came into view, a sparrowhawk hovered in the sun's eye so that
the blood-nourished brown of his wings gleamed nearly red. Jon had a
passion for birds, and an aptitude for sitting very still to watch
them; keen-sighted, and with a memory for what interested him, on birds
he was almost worth listening to. But in Chanctonbury Ring there were
none--its great beech temple was empty of life, and almost chilly at
this early hour; they came out willingly again into the sun on the far
side. It was Fleur's turn now. She spoke of dogs, and the way people
treated them. It was wicked to keep them on chains! She would like to
flog people who did that. Jon was astonished to find her so
humanitarian. She knew a dog, it seemed, which some farmer near her
home kept chained up at the end of his chicken run, in all weathers
till it had almost lost its voice from barking!

"And the misery is," she said vehemently, "that if the poor thing
didn't bark at every one who passes it wouldn't be kept there. I do
think men are cunning brutes. I've let it go twice, on the sly; it's
nearly bitten me both times, and then it goes simply mad with joy; but
it always runs back home at last, and they chain it up again. If I had
my way, I'd chain that man up."

Jon saw her teeth and her eyes gleam. "I'd brand him on his forehead
with the word 'Brute'; that would teach him!"

Jon agreed that it would be a good remedy. "It's their sense of
property," he said, "which makes people chain things. The last
generation thought of nothing but property; and that's why there was
the war."

"Oh!" said Fleur, "I never thought of that. Your people and mine
quarrelled about property. And anyway we've all got it--at least, I
su