On that day, wealthy and leisured, with an apple for my lunch and all my time to myself, I decided to visit the brown of the neighbouring hill, hitherto looked upon as the boundary of the world. Right at the top is a row of trees which, turning their backs to the wind, bend and toss about as though to uproot themselves and take to flight. How often, from the little window in my home, have I not seen them bowing their heads in stormy weather; how often have I not watched them writhing like madmen amid the snow-dust which the north-wind’s besom raises and smooths along the hill-side! What are they doing up there, those desolate trees? I am interested in their supple backs, to-day still and upright against the blue of the sky, to-morrow shaken when the clouds pass overhead. I am gladdened by their calmness; I am distressed by their terrified gestures. They are my friends. I have them before my eyes at every hour of the day. In the morning the sun rises behind their transparent screen and ascends in its glory. Where does it come from? I am going to climb up there; and perhaps I shall find out. I mount the slope. It is a lean grass-sward close-cropped by the sheep. It has no bushes, fertile in rents and tears, for which I should have to answer on returning home, nor any rocks, the scaling of which involves like dangers; nothing but large, flat stones, scattered here and there. I have only to go straight on, over smooth ground. But the sward is as steep as a sloping roof. It is long, ever so long; and my legs are very short. From time to time I look up. My friends, the trees on the hill-top, seem to be no nearer. Cheerly, sonnie! Scramble away! What is this at my feet? A lovely bird has flown from its hiding-place under the eaves of a big stone. Bless us, here’s a nest made of hair and fine straw! It’s the first I have ever found, the first of the joys which the birds are to bring me. And in this nest are six eggs, laid prettily side by side; and these eggs are a magnificent blue, as though steeped in a dye of celestial azure. Overpowered with happiness, I lie down on the grass and stare. Meanwhile the mother, with a little clap of her gullet—“Tack! Tack!”—flies anxiously from stone to stone, not far from the intruder. My age knows no pity, is still too barbarous to understand maternal anguish. A plan is running in my head, a plan worthy of a little beast of prey. I will come back in a fortnight and collect the nestlings before they can fly away. In the meantime, I will just take one of those pretty blue eggs, only one, as a trophy. Lest it should be crushed, I place the fragile thing on a little moss in the scoop of my hand. Let him cast a stone at me that has not, in his childhood, known the rapture of finding his first nest.