Churchyard Pheasants 1 39 



to be heard there. There being no house attached to 

 the living, the holder could not reside ; so the old 

 church slumbered in the midst of the meadows, the 

 hedges, and woods, day after day, year after year. 



You could sit on the low churchyard wall in early 

 summer under the shade of the elms in the hedge, 

 whose bushes and briars carne right over, and listen 

 to the whistling of the blackbirds or the varied note 

 of the thrush ; you might see the whitethroat rise and 

 sing just over the hedge, or look upwards and watch 

 the swallows and swifts wheeling, wheeling, wheeling 

 in the sky. No one would pass to disturb your 

 meditations, whether simply dreaming of nothing in 

 the genial summer warmth, or thinking over the 

 course of history since the prows of the Norman ships 

 grounded on the beach. If we suppose the time, in- 

 stead of June, to be August or September, there would 

 not even be the singing of the birds. But as you sat 

 on the wall, by-and-by the pheasants, tame as chickens, 

 would come up the hedge and over into the church- 

 yard. 



Leaving the church to stroll by the footpath across 

 the meadow towards the wood, at the first gateway 

 half-a-dozen more pheasants scatter aside, just far 

 enough to let you pass. In the short dusty lane more 

 pheasants ; and again at the edge of the cornfield. 



