It was an intensely hot July day--not a cloud appeared in the high blue
vault of the sky; the trees, the flowers, the grasses, were all
motionless, for not even the gentlest zephyr of a breeze was abroad; the
whole world seemed lapped in a sort of drowsy, hot, languorous slumber.
Even the flowers bowed their heads a little weariedly, and the birds
after a time ceased singing, and got into the coolest and most shady
parts of the great forest trees. There they sat and talked to one
another of the glorious weather, for they liked the heat, although it
made them too lazy to sing.

It was an open plain of country, and although there were clumps of trees
here and there, great clumps with cool shade under them, there were also
acres and acres of common land on which the sun beat remorselessly. This
land was covered with heather, not yet in flower, and with bracken,
which was already putting on its autumn glory of yellow and red. Neither
the bracken nor the heather minded the July heat, but the butterflies
thought it a trifle uncomfortable, and made for the clumps of trees, and
looked longingly and regretfully at what had been a noisy, babbling
little brook, but was now a dry and stony channel, deserted even by the
dragon-flies.

At the other side of the brook was a hedge, composed principally of wild
roses and hawthorn bushes, and beyond the hedge was a wide dyke, and at
the top of the dyke a wire paling, and beyond that again, a good-sized
vegetable garden.

From the tops of the trees, had any one been energetic enough to climb
up there, or had any bird been sufficiently endowed with curiosity to