BADBURY RINGS 143 



we did not arrive till half-past three o'clock. As 

 we approached, we heard, to our delight, the croak 

 of the ravens, and saw them soaring above the 

 clump or wheeling round it, in the pursuit of one 

 another. We entered the clump. There were two 

 or three raven-like looking nests, apparently of bye- 

 gone years, and we did not want to assail the 

 wrong one ; so we crouched down and watched 

 till we saw, or thought we saw, the raven go into 

 one of them. Creeping up, we gave the tree a smart 

 tap and out the bird flew ; but as birds often go into 

 their nests and ''think about it," some days before 

 they lay in them, we did not feel over-sanguine as 

 to its contents. 



The tree was just what we had expected, and 

 there was nothing to be done but to go at it, 

 hammer and nails. It was a task of delicacy and 

 difficulty, not to say of danger : to lean with one 

 foot the whole of one's weight upon a nail, which 

 might have a flaw in it, or might not have been 

 driven far enough into the tree ; to cling with one 

 arm, as far as it would reach, round the bole, and, 

 with the other, to hold both nail and hammer, and 

 to coax the former into the tree with very gentle 

 blows for a heavy blow would at once have 

 overbalanced me and then to climb one step 



