close
by. A few days after our first meeting we walked together on a road, a
part of which was overflowed by a river at its side. Our theme was the
transcendental philosophy, of which he was a great admirer. I felt sure
that he would not observe the flood, and made no remark on it. We walked
straight on till the water was half way up to our knees. At last he
exclaimed, 'What's this? We seem to be walking through a river. Had we
not better return to the dry land?'"

There is a spot in the woods by the River Coln that is almost untrodden
by man. It is the favourite resort of foxes. Nobody but myself and the
earth-stopper has been there for years and years, save that when the
hounds come the huntsman rides through and cheers the pack. It is in the
conyger wood. No path leads through its quiet recesses, where ash and
elm and larch and spruce, mostly self-sown, are mingled together, with a
thick growth of elder spread beneath them. It was here, in an ancient,
disused quarry, that the keeper pointed out not long since the secret
dwelling-house of the kingfishers. A small crevice in the limestone
rock, from which a disagreeable smell of dried fish bones issued forth,
formed the outer entrance to the nest. One could not see the delicate
structure itself, for it appeared to be several feet within the rock. A
mass of powdered fish bones and the pungent odour from within were all
the outward signs of the inner nest. By standing on a jutting ledge of
the soft cretaceous rock, and holding on by another ledge, which
appeared not unlikely to come down and crush you, one could peep into
the hole and comfort oneself with the thought that one was nearer a
kingfisher's nest than is usually vouchsafed to mortal man. It would be
easy to get ladder and pickaxe and break open the rock until the nest
was reached, but why disturb these lovely birds? They have built here
year by year for centuries; even now some of this year's brood may be
seen among the willows by the back brook.

From this quarry was dug in the year 1590 the stone to build the old
manor house yonder. A few miles away toward Burford is the quarry from
which men say Christopher Wren brought some of the stone to raise St.
Paul's Cathedral. Yet the local people do not care a bit for this
beautiful freestone of the Cotswold Hills. They want to bring granite
from afar for their village crosses, and ugly blue slates for the roofs
of the houses. At a parish council meeting the other