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Then, sitting on the grey and lichen-covered rail under the cover of a hawthorn, I saw sometimes two and sometimes three cuckoos following each other courting, now round the copse, now by the hedge or the brook, and presently along the rails where they constantly perched. Occasionally one would alight on the sward among the purple flowers of the meadow orchis.
Fifty yards up-stream a low fall roared musically; but before reaching the fresh tranquillity of the pool, the current bore no signs of its disturbance save a few softly whirling foam clusters. Light airs, perfumed with birch and balsam and warm scents of the sun-steeped sward, drew over the pool from time to time, wrinkling and clouding its glassy surface.
Sometimes on lying down on the sward I first looked up at the sky, gazing for a long time till I could see deep into the azure and my eyes were full of the colour; then I turned my face to the grass and thyme, placing my hands at each side of my face so as to shut out everything and hide myself.
The young woodsman advanced cautiously, seeing and hearing much that was lost to his companions, stopping continually and examining the signs of leaf and moss and twig. Their route lay for the most part through open glades amid a huge pine forest, with a green sward beneath their feet, made beautiful by the white euphorbia, the golden rod, and the purple aster.
By the top of the furthest ridge, looking down on North Holmwood church, they sat side by side for a while on the close short grass, brocaded with daisies, and gazed across at the cropped sward of Denbies and the long line of the North Downs stretching away towards Reigate.
It certainly does seem like it to anyone who has just come from the fireless cooker that sometimes rejoices under the name of Manhattan. My old Aunt Maria! But it is hot there, though." "We're very glad to see you, Tom," Kathryn began; "although we do owe you a scolding." "What for?" he demanded, setting the child to the sward and taking off his hat. "You haven't been near us for a fortnight."
His golden dream was at an end. He was lying along the sward, upon his side, half doubled up. I could not see his face. His hands were over it, with palms spread out as if shading his eyes from the sun! It was a position of ordinary repose; and one might have fancied him asleep. But the gory crown, and red mottling upon the shirt seemingly still wet forbade the supposition.
The laugh and delighted applause that was given her seemed to have been the last straw to the actors behind the shrubbery, restrained by their young preceptress, for the pageant broke upon us. First Mikey, with huge white cambric stork wings, hopped upon the stage of sward and deposited the brown-wrapped Suckling in a hollow log in the center, and departed flapping.
Why he was the last of the Gray Dogs is now to be told. THE SUN was hiding behind the Pike. Over the lowlands the feathery breath of night hovered still. And the hillside was shivering in the chillness of dawn. Down on the silvery sward beside the Stony Bottom there lay the ruffled body of a dead sheep.
His right hand grasped a long-blade, knife, while his gun was carried in the left. They moved slowly and with great caution though ready at any moment to spring forward should their victim awake and become aware of their presence. The unconscious sleeper lay between them and the fire. His form cast a shadow over the sward.
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