SAINT GUIDO. 5 



rush, and saw the wheat-ears sway this way and that 

 as if a puff of wind had struck them. 



Guido stood still and his eyes opened very wide, he 

 had forgotten to cut a stick to fight with : he watched 

 the wheatears sway, and could see them move for some 

 distance, and he did not know what it was. Perhaps 

 it was a wild boar or a yellow lion, or some creature 

 no one had ever seen ; he would not go back, but he 

 wished he had cut a nice stick. Just then a swallow 

 swooped down and came flying over the wheat so 

 close that Guido almost felt the flutter of his wings, 

 and as he passed he whispered to Guido that it was 

 only a hare. " Then why did he run away ? " said 

 Guido; "I should not have hurt him." But the 

 swallow had gone up high into the sky again, and did 

 * not hear him. All the time Guido was descending the 

 slope, for little feet always go down the hill as water 

 does, and when he looked back he found that he had 

 left the fir-trees so far behind he was in the middle of 

 the field. If any one had looked they could hardly 

 have seen him, and if he had taken his cap off they 

 could not have done so because the yellow curls would 

 be so much the same colour as the yellow corn. He 

 stooped to see how nicely he could hide himself, then 

 he knelt, and in a minute sat down, so that the wheat 

 rose up high above him. 



Another humble-bee went over along the tips of the 

 wheat — burr-rr — as he passed ; then a scarlet fly, and 

 next a bright yellow wasp who was telling a friend fly- 

 ing behind him that he knew where there was such a 

 capital piece of wood to bite up into tiny pieces and 

 make into paper for the nest in the thatch, but his 



