But he was not to be put off by my sudden coldness, and he proceeded to inform me that he had just returned from Salisbury Plain, that it had been noised abroad that ten thousand men were wanted by the War Office to work in forming new camps. On arrival he found it was not so--it was all a lie--men were not wanted--and he was now on his way to Andover, penniless and hungry and-- By the time he had got to that part of his story we were some distance apart, as I had remained standing still while he, thinking me still close behind, had gone on picking blackberries and talking. 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.