'Come along!' shouted Peggy. 'We're wasting time!'
'Let's take the short cut,' cried Bobby, hopping nimbly over the fence into the meadow, where the kingcups were lying, such a bright mass of gold in the sunshine that you might have thought the stars had fallen from the sky and were shining in the fields instead. Little rabbits scuttled away before them into the hedgerows, and a cock pheasant, disturbed in his afternoon nap, flew with a great whir into the coppice close by. Two fields brought them out on to the common, where the gorse was a blaze of colour and the bees were busy buzzing among the sweet-smelling blossom.
'Joe said there was a yellowhammer's nest just there, close by the elder-bush,' said Bobby.
'All right,' said Peggy; 'you take one side of the tree, and I'll take the other.'
A few minutes' search resulted in a delighted 'S'sh!' from Bobby, for on a little ledge of rock under an overhanging tussock of grass was the cosiest, cunningest nest in the world, and the yellowhammer herself sat on it, looking at them with her bright little eyes, half undecided whether to stay or to fly away in alarm.
Peggy crept up as quietly as a mouse. Though the children were very anxious to find nests, it was not in any spirit of ruthless robbery. Mr. Vaughan was a keen naturalist, and had taught them to watch the birds in their haunts, but disturb them as little as possible, taking an occasional egg for their collection, but only when there were so many in the nest that it would not be missed.
'Isn't she stunning?' whispered Bobby. 'And how tight she sits!'
But a human voice was too much for the yellowhammer, and she flew like a dart into the gorse-bushes.
'Five eggs,' said Peggy, 'but not one of them a cuckoo's. You don't want one, do you, Bobby?'
'No, I've got three at home. I had five, but I swopped two of them with Frank Wilson for a redstart's.'