lazy
day under the Midsummer sky, in some fields about a mile off, called
the Vineyards.

The morning came, and we took our way thither, under the Abbey walls,
and along a lane, shaded on one side by the "willows in the
water-courses." We came out in those quiet hay-fields, which,
tradition says, had once grown wine for the rosy monks close by, and
history avers, were afterwards watered by a darker stream than the
blood of grapes. The Vineyards had been a battle-field; and under the
long wavy grass, and the roots of the wild apple trees, slept many a
Yorkist and Lancastrian. Sometimes an unusually deep furrow turned out
a white bone--but more often the relics were undisturbed, and the
meadows used as pastures or hay-fields.

John and I lay down on some wind-rows, and sunned ourselves in the warm
and delicious air. How beautiful everything was! so very still! with
the Abbey-tower--always the most picturesque point in our Norton Bury
views--showing so near, that it almost seemed to rise up out of the
fields and hedge-rows.

"Well, David," and I turned to the long, lazy figure beside me, which
had considerably flattened the hay, "are you satisfied?"

"Ay."

Thus we lounged out all the summer morning, recurring to a few of the
infinitude of subjects we used to compare notes upon; though we were
neither of us given to wordiness, and never talked but when we had
something to say. Often--as on this day--we sat for hours in a
pleasant dreaminess, scarcely exchanging a word; nevertheless, I could
generally track John's thoughts, as they went wandering on, ay, as
clearly as one might track a stream through a wood; sometimes--like
to-day--I failed.

In the afternoon, when we had finished our bread and cheese--eaten
slowly and with graceful dignity, in order to make dinner a more
important and lengthy affair--he said abruptly--

"Phineas, don't you think this field is rather dull? Shall we go
somewhere else? not if it tires you, though."

I protested the contrary, my health being much above the average this
summer. But just as we were quitting the field we met two rather
odd-looking persons entering it, young-old persons they seemed, who
might own to any age or any occupation. Their dress, especially that
of the younger, amused us by its queer mixture of fashionableness and
homeliness, such as grey ribbed stockings and shining paste
shoe-buckles, rusty velvet small-clothes and a coatee of blue cloth.
But the wea