for sporting; here leading up a rising ground whence the tops of the trees might be overlooked, some flecked with gold, some blushing into crimson, and beyond them the needle point of the village spire, the vane flashing back the sun; there bending into a ravine, marshy at the bottom, and nourishing the lady fern, then again crossing glades, where the rabbits darted across the path, and the battle of Damietta was broken into by stern orders to Fly to come to heel, and the eating of the nuts which Humfrey pulled down from the branches, and held up to his cousin with superior good nature.
‘A Mameluke rushed in with a scimitar streaming with blood, and—’
‘Take care; do you want help over this fence?’
‘Not I, thank you—And said he had just murdered the king—’
‘Vic! ah! take your nose out of that. Here was a crop, Nora.’
‘What was it?’
‘You don’t mean that you don’t know wheat stubble?’
‘I remember it was to be wheat.’
‘Red wheat, the finest we ever had in this land; not a bit beaten down, and the colour perfectly beautiful before harvest; it used to put me in mind of your hair. A load to the acre; a fair specimen of the effect of drainage. Do you remember what a swamp it was?’
‘I remember the beautiful loose-strifes that used to grow in that corner.’