Then he looked about him, shading his eyes with his hand. 'Let us consider,' he said. 'The troopers, I take it, are riding along the roads. Whether they will ride over these hills, I know not; but I think they will not, because their horses cannot well get up these combs. Certainly, if they do, it will not be by the way we came. We are here, therefore, hidden away snug. Why should we budge? Nowhere is there a more deserted part of the country than Black Down, on whose side we are. And I do not think, further, that we should find anywhere a safer place to hide ourselves in than this comb, where, I dare to say, no one comes, unless it be the gipsies or the broom-squires, all the year round. And now they are all laden with the spoil of the army--for, after a battle, this gentry swoop down upon the field like the great birds which I have seen abroad upon the carcases of drowned beasts, and plunder the dead. Next they must go into town in order to sell their booty; then they will be fain to drink about till all is spent; so they will leave us undisturbed. Therefore, we will stay here, Sister. First, I will go and try the old tricks by which I did often in the old time improve the fare at home. Next, I will devise some way of making a more comfortable resting-place. Thank the Lord for fine weather, so far.' He was gone a couple of hours. During that time my mother awoke. Her mind was broken by the suddenness of this trouble, and she cared no more to speak, sitting still by the side of her husband, and watching for any change in him. But I persuaded her to take a little bread and a cup of cider. When Barnaby came back, he brought with him a blackbird, a thrush, and two wood-pigeons. He had not forgotten the tricks of his boyhood, when he would often bring home a rabbit, a hare, or a basket of trout. So that my chief terror, that we might be forced to abandon our hiding-place through sheer hunger, was removed. But Barnaby was full of all kinds of devices. He then set to work with his great knife, cutting down a quantity of green branches, which he laid out side by side, with their leaves on, and then bound them together, cleverly interlacing the smaller shoots and branches with each other, so that he made a long kind of hurdle, about six feet high. This, which by reason of the leaves was almost impervious to the wind, he disposed round the trunks of three young trees growing near each other. Thus he made a small three-cornered inclosure. Again, he cut other and thicker branches, and laid them over and across this hurdle, and cut turf which he placed upon the branches, so that here was now a hut with a roof and walls complete. Said I not that Barnaby was full of devices?