greatest abundance; for, without knowing it, I had been walking through
a grove composed in large part of old walnut-trees. Nut after nut was
picked up and eagerly devoured, and I must have eaten four or five dozen
before my ravenous appetite was thoroughly appeased. During this feast I
had paid no attention to the birds, but when my hunger was over I began
again to feel annoyed at their trivial persecutions, and so continued to
gather the fallen nuts to throw at them. It amused and piqued me at the
same time to see how wide of the mark my missiles went. I could hardly
have hit a haystack at a distance of ten yards. After half an hour's
vigorous practice my right hand began to recover its lost cunning, and I
was at last greatly delighted when of my nuts went hissing like a bullet
through the leaves, not further than a yard from the wren, or whatever
the little beggar was, I had aimed at. Their Impertinences did not like
this at all; they began to find out that I was a rather dangerous person
to meddle with: their ranks were broken, they became demoralized and
scattered, in all directions, and I was finally left master of the
field.

"Dolt that I am," I suddenly exclaimed, "to be fooling away my time when
the nearest railway station or hotel is perhaps twenty miles away."

I hurried on, but when I got to the end of the grove, on the green sward
near some laurel and juniper bushes, I came on an excavation apparently
just made, the loose earth which had been dug out looking quite fresh
and moist. The hole or foss was narrow, about five feet deep and seven
feet long, and looked, I imagined, curiously like a grave. A few yards
away was a pile of dry brushwood, and some faggots bound together with
ropes of straw, all apparently freshly cut from the neighboring bushes.
As I stood there, wondering what these things meant, I happened to
glance away in the direction of the house where I intended to call,