Of a sudden he found himself again at the top of one of those almost sheer descents to which he was becoming used.
At its foot grew a hanger of beeches, already bronzing to autumn.
Down he went, slithering on hands and tail, picked himself up towards the bottom, and ran away into the shade of the wood to find himself among silver-grey beech-stems.
How refreshing it was after the glare, how rich, how dark!
Till he was out of it, he had not known how hot it had been on the bare hill-side. Now he was aware of the sweat on his forehead, and a dripping shirt.
Beech-stems rose in stately columns all about him. The floor was red and brown mosaic, the roof a tracery of leaves intertwined with light. Eastward the sun flashed as through a window. Close by a wood-pigeon was praying.
Out of the aisle once again into the glare.
Now the Downs lay behind him, barren and dun. On his left-front the rounded bosom of another beech-wood rose, in its midst a single chestnut already rusting. Across the valley, behind a ridge, a blunt church-tower and yellow-lichened roofs peeped. On the hill beyond, a windmill cocked up against the sky.
He paid little attention, making straight for the flag of his country.
The cottage stood about a quarter of a mile away, conspicuously solitary in the greensward, the Union Jack brave above it.