She learned to rub the ripe ears in her hands to work the grain out of the husk, and then to winnow away the chaff by letting the corn slowly drop in a stream from one palm to the other, blowing gently with her mouth the while. The grain remained on account of its weight, the chaff floating away, and the wheat, still soft though fully formed, could thus be pleasantly tasted. The plaintive notes of the yellowhammer fell from the scanty trees of the wheat-field hedge, and the ploughboy who was put there to frighten away the rooks told her the bird said, repeating the song over and over again, 'A little bit of bread and _no_ cheese.' And indeed these syllables, with a lengthening emphasis on the 'no,' come ludicrously near to represent the notes. The ploughboy understood them very well, for to have only a hunch of bread and little or no cheese was often his own case. Two meadows distant from the lower woods of the Chace there is what seems from afar a remarkably wide hedge irregularly bordered with furze. But on entering a gateway in it you find a bridge over a brook, which for some distance flows with a hedge on either side. The low parapet of the bridge affords a seat--one of Cicely's favourite haunts--whence in spring it is pleasant to look up the brook; for the banks sloping down from the bushes to the water are yellow with primroses, and hung over with willow boughs. As the brook is straight, the eye can see under these a long way up; and presently a kingfisher, bright with azure and ruddy hues, comes down the brook, flying but just above the surface on which his reflection travels too. He perches for a moment on a branch close to the bridge, but the next sees that he is not alone, and instantly retreats with a shrill cry. A moorhen ventures forth from under the arches, her favourite hiding-place, and feeds among the weeds by the shore, but at the least movement rushes back to shelter. A wood-pigeon comes over, flying slowly; he was going to alight on the ash tree yonder, but suddenly espying some one under the cover of the boughs increases his pace and rises higher. Two bright bold bullfinches pass; they have a nest somewhere in the thick hawthorn. A jay, crossing from the fir plantations, stays awhile in the hedge, and utters his loud harsh scream like the tearing of linen. For a few hours the winds are still and the sunshine broods warm over the mead. It is a delicious snatch of spring.