There had been rain. He saw stretches of dim brown and bleached yellow, broken here and there by the bright mustard tint of fully blown broom and patched with little pools on which the sun shone, turning them into irregular plates of turquoise. There was a tethered goat with a little kid by her side. Haughty geese, with their newly hatched families behind them, strutted proudly. There were ever so many young things; humpy, clumsy calves, ducklings trying to swim in the pools with all the dignity and address of their elders; a colt, set on long, stick-like, squarely placed legs--like a toy wooden horse--and with a funny tail like a hearth brush. Chaytor laughed heartily with recollection of this colt when he was telling us his experiences. The heather sprang up after his feet had crushed it. Everything was whole and sweet. He sniffed at a delicious, intangible smell. He sat down, the ground yielded to his body like a pillow. He gave his aching lungs, clogged with so many years of smoke and fog, their fill. There was no house in sight, no, not one. No chimney speared the sky. The sky! He looked up, and the blue and yellow blinded him. He looked down and saw only wide clean common, patched by broom and gorse, spread with withered heather. A bird flew up singing, as if its throat would burst. Across the common came a jerky, regular call. Something tight came up in his neck and his eyes grew hot and dry. He had heard the lark. He had heard the cuckoo. He had ceased to masquerade, to play the fool. He had come to his own. He jumped up with a tremendous feeling of strength and exhilaration and went on. He swung his shoulders with a grand free swing. He looked about him, intently, critically, as a man looks at his inheritance. The common seemed to be garnering itself and the face of the country was changing. He was approaching a pastoral district. He crossed a bridge; on one side was an iron railing, on the other a low coping of stone. He climbed over a stile. It had easy steps and a broad top--a good stile to linger on. It led into a little copse; merely a copse fringed with hazel, with a thick carpet of rotting leaves, with primroses and oxlips holding up their starry heads, with bluebells making a powdery haze. There were lovers in the copse. They stared at him furtively, then scuttled into the shadow like timid birds. But he saw both the man and the girl grin sheepishly. Beyond the copse was luscious, elastic pasture land. He went lightly along, noticing everything with microscopic fidelity. Women in the distance were bent double as they rooted out the flaming charlock from a field of barley.