136 Idylls of the Field. 



went off to the spring for water ; and it was not long 

 before we were engaged on our first meal in our new 

 quarters. 



The little hinged table just held the bread, the 

 meat, and honey; there was no room for plates if 

 there had been any. 



The want of these was supplied by spare pine 

 shingles for mending the roof, which we held on our 

 knees, and changed for the second course by the 

 simple process of turning them over. Our diet was 

 plain, perhaps, but even a queen has been known to 

 have no better fare than bread and honey, whereas 

 we, happy savages in our lonely hut, had that, and 

 bilberry-jam as well. Dinner over, three of us started 

 to explore the valley, while the artist got to work at 

 his canvas. 



From a patch of forest further up, we started a 

 stag, that went bounding across in tremendous leaps 

 and up the slope on the left. 



High overhead floated a pair of buzzards — dark 

 against the vivid blue — calling now and then to each 

 other as they sailed in vast circles. Once a hoopoe flew 

 by and settled on a dead pine not twenty yards away. 



In the trees were crested tits, and black redstarts, 

 and we heard both the nutcracker and the great black 

 woodpecker. 



We noticed numbers of a brilliant beetle, a 

 Chrysomela, green, with a gold border, on the leaves 

 of the burdock. 



