In an old holly-tree
rooted to the bank about fifty yards away, two magpies evidently had a
nest, for they were coming and going, avoiding my view as much as
possible, yet with a certain stealthy confidence which made one feel
that they had long prescriptive right to that dwelling-place. Around,
far as one could see, was hardly a yard of level ground; all hill and
hollow, long ago reclaimed from the moor; and against the distant folds
of the hills the farm-house and its thatched barns were just visible,
embowered amongst beeches and some dark trees, with a soft bright crown
of sunlight over the whole. A gentle wind brought a faint rustling up
from those beeches, and from a large lime-tree which stood by itself; on
this wind some little snowy clouds, very high and fugitive in that blue
heaven, were always moving over. But I was most struck by the
buttercups. Never was field so lighted up by those tiny lamps, those
little bright pieces of flower china out of the Great Pottery. They
covered the whole ground, as if the sunlight had fallen bodily from the
sky, in millions of gold patines; and the fields below as well, down to
what was evidently a stream, were just as thick with the extraordinary
warmth and glory of them.

Leaving the rock at last, I went towards the house. It was long and low,
and rather sad, standing in a garden all mossy grass and buttercups,
with a few rhododendrons and flowery shrubs, below a row of fine old
Irish yews. On the stone verandah a grey sheep-dog and a very small
golden-haired child were sitting close together, absorbed in each other.
A woman came in answer to my knock, and told me, in a pleasant soft,
slurring voice, that I might stay the night; and dropping my knapsack, I
went out again. Through an old gate under a stone arch I came on the
farmyard, quite deserted save for a couple of ducks moving slowly down a
gutter in the sunlight; and noticing the upper half of a stable-door
open, I went across, in search of something living. There, in a rough
loose-box, on thick straw, lay a chestnut, long-tailed mare, with the
skin and head of a thoroughbred. She was swathed in blankets, and her
face, all cut about the cheeks and over the eyes, rested on an ordinary
human's pillow, held by a bearded man in shirt-sleeves; while, leaning
against the white-washed walls, sat fully a dozen other men, perfectly
silent, very gravely and intently gazing. The mare's eyes were
half-closed, and what could be see