178 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



that my very bones are dyed yellow, that if I were to 

 drop down among the furze-bushes on some neigh- 

 bouring common and rest there undiscovered for 

 several years, those who found me would not believe 

 that my remains were human, but only a skeleton 

 cunningly carved out of Ham Hill stone. This sen- 

 sation, or its memory, or the feeling which remains 

 in the mind when the memory and images have 

 vanished, enters in and gives an expression to all 

 buildings of this same yellow material. This feeling 

 was in me when I spent a couple of hours in full sight 

 of Montacute House; otherwise I should probably 

 have thought, as no doubt most persons do, that the 

 colour of the stone added greatly to the beauty of 

 the building, that it harmonised with its surroundings, 

 the green spaces and ancient noble trees, bathed in 

 a brilliant sunlight, and the wide blue sky above. 



On my first evening in the town I went out into 

 the neighbouring wood on the steep slope above the 

 little river Yeo, and listened to a nightingale for half 

 an hour, the only one I could find in the place. On 

 the following afternoon I had sitting opposite to me 

 at the table when taking tea at the hotel a commercial 

 traveller whose appearance and speech amused and 

 interested me. A tall bony uncouth-looking young 

 man with lantern jaws and sunburned skin, in a rough 

 suit of tweeds and thick boots; he was more like a 

 working farmer than a "commercial," who as a rule 

 is a towny, dapper person. I ventured the remark 

 that he came from the north. Oh yes, he replied, 

 from a manufacturing town in Yorkshire; he had 



