And long weeks--months--went by in my wanderings, mostly in open downland country, too often under gloomy skies, chilled by cold winds and wetted by cold rains.

Then, having accomplished my purpose and discovered incidentally that the call had mocked me again, as on so many previous occasions, I returned once more to the old familiar green place.
Crossing the common, I found that where it had been dry in spring one might now sink to his knees in the bog; also that the snipe which had vanished for a season were back at the old spot where they used to breed.

It was a bitter day near the end of an unpleasant summer, with the wind back in the old hateful north-east quarter; but the sun shone, the sky was blue, and the flying clouds were of a dazzling whiteness.
Shivering, I remembered the south wall, and went there, since to escape from the wind and bask like some half-frozen serpent or lizard in the heat was the highest good one could look for in such weather.

To see anything new in wild life was not to be hoped for.
That old grey, crumbling wall of ancient Calleva, crowned with big oak and ash and thorn and holly, and draped with green bramble and trailing ivy and creepers--how good a shelter it is on a cold, rough day! Moving softly, so as not to disturb any creature, I yet disturbed a ring snake lying close to the wall, into which it quickly vanished; and then from their old place among the stones a pair of blue stock-doves rushed out with clatter of wings.

The same blue doves which I had known for three years at that spot! A few more steps and I came upon as pretty a little scene in bird life as one could wish for: twenty to twenty-five small birds of different species--tits, wrens, dunnocks, thrushes, blackbirds, chaffinches, yellowhammers--were congregated on the lower outside twigs of a bramble bush and on the bare ground beside it close to the foot of the wall.