Beyond the level of Mrs Moseley’s cottage the houses thinned away and the ground fell steeply to the fields above the Stour, the scene of Abner’s walks with Susan more than a year before. Dawn came, heralded by no fierce splendours, white light stealing from the east over a cloudless sky. The birds were already awake, but the hush of August held them, so that the warblers were silent. Larks there were, lost in the sunlit levels above the whiteness; thrushes made subdued domestic noises in the hedgerows; linnets already flocking for the early harvest of seed, rustled the hawthorn thickets, chaffinches sang boldly in a more vulgar strain. A soft air bloomed the drowsy hedges. Elder blossoms and slender umbels of parsley flower gleamed like dull ivory. Light, and more light came welling over the world. When Abner had reached the plank bridge over the Stour where Susan first had kissed him, the edge of the woodland rose up black beyond the stream, the water gleamed beneath the alders, and the hills, that had lain folded in night, lifted their heads. Now the birds were silent. Only the larks still sang. Walking behind the ecstatic Tiger through a green lane in Uffdown Wood, Abner saw the peak of Pen Beacon before him smitten with fire. The sun was up. Gigantic shadows dappled and barred the grass. Tiger, dancing from side to side, pursued a phantom hound. They left the woods and dropped over a stile into a winding road. As yet the sun had no real heat: colour it warmed, but the air was cool, cool and clean as the surface of this rocky road so often scoured by torrents. The heavy odours of the woods belonged to night, but the smell of the road was one of morning. Gradually the banks released the peculiar perfume of a hill-country in sunshine, a lovely, healthy savour of thyme and bracken and dry heather. A breeze swept the harebells. Still they climbed the path towards the top of Uffdown where the sun came first. Even at this hour pods were snapping amid the almond scent of late gorse blossom. In the shadow of a hedge where prickles were few Abner threw himself down propping his head on a tussock of thin grass. He closed his eyes, and was soon asleep, and Tiger, having smelt and scared innumerable rabbits, came at last to lie beside him, propping his slender lower jaw upon the smooth of Abner’s thigh. He did not sleep for long. His watch had stopped, and he could not tell the time, but from the height of the sun he judged it to be between eight and nine o’clock. The grass of that southern hedge-side was already warm and fragrant, and the mistiness of the Severn plain beneath him promised another day of broiling heat. He was horribly stiff and lay on with a sense of lazy luxury, letting the sun warm his bones. Sprawling there with his eyes closed he now began to consider where he should go.