The Open Air | Page 3

up high into the sky again, and did not hear him. All the time
Guido was descending the slope, for little feet always go down the hill
as water does, and when he looked back he found that he had left the
fir-trees so far behind he was in the middle of the field. If any one had
looked they could hardly have seen him, and if he had taken his cap off
they could not have done so because the yellow curls would be so

much the same colour as the yellow corn. He stooped to see how nicely
he could hide himself, then he knelt, and in a minute sat down, so that
the wheat rose up high above him.
Another humble-bee went over along the tips of the wheat--burr-rr--as
he passed; then a scarlet fly, and next a bright yellow wasp who was
telling a friend flying behind him that he knew where there was such a
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 sniffling rustle close to Guido. A shrill cry
came down out of the air, and looking up he saw two swifts 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.
Some sparrows came out from the copse, and he stopped and saw one
of them perch on a stalk of wheat, with one foot above the other
sideways, so that he could pick at the ear and get the corn. Guido
watched the sparrow clear the ear, then he moved, and the sparrows

flew back to the copse, where they chattered at him for disturbing them.
There was a ditch between the corn and the copse, and a streamlet; he
picked up a stone and threw it in, and the splash frightened a rabbit,
who slipped over the bank and into a hole. The boughs of an oak
reached out across to the corn, and made so pleasant a shade that Guido,
who was very hot from walking in the sun, sat down on the bank of the
streamlet with his feet dangling over it, and watched the floating grass
sway slowly as the water ran. Gently he leaned back till his back rested
on the sloping ground--he raised one knee, and left the other foot over
the verge where the tip of the tallest rushes touched it. Before he had
been there a minute he remembered the secret which a fern had taught
him.
First, if he wanted to know anything, or to hear a story, or what the
grass was saying, or the oak-leaves singing, he must be careful not to
interfere as he had done just now with the butterfly by trying to catch
him. Fortunately, that butterfly was a nice butterfly, and very
kindhearted, but sometimes, if you interfered with one thing, it would
tell another thing, and they would all know in a moment, and stop
talking, and