capital piece of wood to bite up into tiny pieces and make into paper
for the nest in the thatch, but his friend wanted to go to the house
because there was a pear quite ripe there on the wall. Next came a moth,
and after the moth a golden fly, and three gnats, and a mouse ran along
the dry ground with a curious sniffing rustle close to Guido. A shrill
cry came down out of the air, and looking up he saw two swifts
[Footnote: Swifts: swallows.] turning circles, and as they passed each
other they shrieked--their voices were so shrill they shrieked. They
were only saying that in a month their little swifts in the slates would
be able to fly. While he sat so quiet on the ground and hidden by the
wheat, he heard a cuckoo such a long way off it sounded like a watch
when it is covered up. "Cuckoo" did not come full and distinct--it was
such a tiny little "cuckoo" caught in the hollow of Guido's ear. The
cuckoo must have been a mile away.

Suddenly he thought something went over, and yet he did not see
it--perhaps it was the shadow--and he looked up and saw a large bird not
very far up, not farther than he could fling, or shoot his arrows, and
the bird was fluttering his wings, but did not move away farther, as if
he had been tied in the air. Guido knew it was a hawk, and the hawk was
staying there to see if there was a mouse or a little bird in the wheat.
After a minute the hawk stopped fluttering and lifted his wings together
as a butterfly does when he shuts his, and down the hawk came, straight
into the corn. "Go away!" shouted Guido jumping up, and flinging his
cap, and the hawk, dreadfully frightened and terribly cross, checked
himself and rose again with an angry rush. So the mouse escaped, but
Guido could not find his cap for some time. Then he went on, and still
the ground sloping sent him down the hill till he came close to the
copse.