walk. Turning into the first path across the fields on
leaving the village, we came eventually to an oak wood, which
was like an open forest, very wild and solitary. In half an
hour's walk among the old oaks and underwood we saw no sign of
human occupancy, and heard nothing but the woodland birds. We
heard, and then saw, the cuckoo for the first time that
season, though it was but April the fourth. But the cuckoo
was early that spring and had been heard by some from the
middle of March. At length, about half-past ten o'clock, we
caught sight of a number of people walking in a kind of
straggling procession by a path which crossed ours at right
angles, headed by a stout old man in a black smock frock and
brown leggings, who carried a big book in one hand. One of
the processionists we spoke to told us they came from a hamlet
a mile away on the borders of the wood and were on their way
to church. We elected to follow them, thinking that the
church was at some neighbouring village; to our surprise we
found it was in the wood, with no other building in sight
--a small ancient-looking church built on a raised mound,
surrounded by a wide shallow grass-grown trench, on the border
of a marshy stream. The people went in and took their seats,
while we remained standing just by the door. Then the priest
came from the vestry, and seizing the rope vigorously, pulled
at it for five minutes, after which he showed us where to sit
and the service began. It was very pleasant there, with the
door open to the sunlit forest and the little green churchyard
without, with a willow wren, the first I had heard, singing
his delicate little strain at intervals.

The service over, we rambled an hour longer in the wood, then