Page:The Life of the Fields, Jefferies, 1884.djvu/110

96 is pale and the woods are slow; the cuckoo calls for his leaves.

Farther along the edge of the valley the beeches thicken, and the turf is covered by the shrunken leaves of last year. Empty hulls of beechmast crunch under foot, the brown beech leaves have drifted a foot deep against the trunk of a felled tree. Beech leaves lie at rest in the cover of furze, sheltered from the wind; suddenly a little cloud of earth rises like dust as a startled cock pheasant scrambles on his wings with a scream. A hen follows, and rises steadily in a long-drawn slanting line till near the tops of the beeches, then rockets sharp up over the highest branches, and descends in a wide sweeping curve along the valley. In the glade among the beeches the furze has grown straight up ten feet high, like sapling trees, and flowers at the top, golden bloom on a dry pole. There are more pheasants in the furze, so that, not to disturb them, it is best to walk round and not enter it. Every now and then there is a curious, half-finished note among the trees—yuc, yuc. This great hawthorn has a twisted stem; the wood winds round itself in a spiral. The bole of a beech in the sunshine is spotted like a trout by the separate shadows of its first young leaves. Tall bushes—almost trees—of blackthorn are in full white flower; the dark, leafless boughs make it appear the whiter. Among the blackthorn several tits are busy, searching about on the twigs, and pecking into the petals; calling loudly as they do so. A willow-wren is peering into the bloom, too, but silent for the moment. The blackthorn is much lichened, the lichen which is built into the