176 BIRDS AND MAN 



hours may sometimes be passed in such a spot with- 

 out a human figure appearing in the landscape. 



The village I was staying at is called Willersey ; the 

 nearest to it, a little over a mile away, is Saintbury. 

 This last was just such a pretty peaceful spot as 

 would tempt a world-weary man to exclaim on first 

 catching sight of it, " Here I could wish to end my 

 days." A little old-world village, set among trees 

 in the sheltering hollow of a deep coombe, consisting 

 of thatched stone cottages, grouped in a pretty dis- 

 order ; a modest ale-house ; a parsonage overgrown 

 with ivy ; and the old stone church, stained yellow 

 and grey with lichen, its low square tower overtopped 

 by the surrounding trees. It was a pleasure merely 

 to sit idle, thinking of nothing, on the higher part of 

 the green slope, with that small centre of rustic life 

 at my feet. For many hours of each day it was 

 strangely silent, the hours during which the men were 

 away at a distance in the fields, the children shut up 

 in school, and the women in their cottages. An 

 occasional bird voice alone broke the silence — the 

 distant harsh call of a crow, or the sudden startled 

 note of a magpie close at hand, a sound that resembles 

 the broken or tremulous bleat of a goat. If an apple 

 dropped from a tree in the village, its thud would be 

 audible from end to end of the little crooked street — 



