there's one this year. S'pose I'm getting too old for
birds'-nesting and climbing. Don't see why I should be, though."

He reached the river's bank at last, and after walking for a few yards,
trampling down the white blossoms of the broad-leaved garlic, which here
grew in profusion, and suggested salad, he reached a rippling shallow,
stepped down into the river, and waded across, the water only reaching
to his ankles.

As he stepped out on the other side, and kicked and stamped to get rid
of the water, he gazed along the winding dale at as glorious a bit of
English scenery as England can produce; and on that bright May morning,
as he breathed in the sweet almond-like odour of the fully-blown
hawthorn blossom, he muttered: "Linkeham's nice enough, but the lads
would never believe how beautiful it is here. Hallo! there he goes. I
wonder where they are building this year."

He shaded his eyes as he looked up at a great blackbird, winging its way
high up above the top of the great cliff which hung over the river, and
watched till it disappeared, when, in a low melodious voice, he began
singing softly another snatch of an old English song, something about
three ravens that sat upon a tree, with a chorus of: "Down, a-down,
a-down," which he repeated again and again, as if it helped him to
reflect.

"Wonder where they are building this year," he said to himself again.
"I should like a couple of little ones to bring up. Get them young, and
they'd be as tame as tame."

He went on wondering where the ravens, which frequented the
neighbourhood of the river and its mountainous cliffs, built their
nests; but wondering did not help him, and he gave up the riddle, and
began, in his pleasant holiday idleness, to look about at other things
in the unfrequented wilderness through which the river ran. To trace
the raven by following it home seemed too difficult, but it was easy to
follow a great bumble-bee, which went blundering by, alighting upon a
block of stone, took flight again, and landed upon a slope covered with
moss, entering at last a hole which went sloping down beneath the
stones.

A little farther on, where a hawthorn whitened the bank with its
fragrant wreaths, there was a quick, fluttering rush, a glimpse of a
speckle-breasted thrush, and a little examination showed the neat nest,
plastered inside smoothly with clay, like a cup, to hold four beautiful
blue eggs, finely-spotted at the ends.

"Sitting, and near