But in a little while their brave note would change to one of trouble; the sight of that immeasurable whiteness covering so much of the earth would scare them, and led by hundreds of clamouring daws they would come down again to settle once more in black masses on the shining yellow trees.
Close by a ploughed field of about forty acres was the camping-ground of an army of peewits; they were travellers from the north perhaps, and were quietly resting, sprinkled over the whole area.

More abundant were the small birds in mixed flocks or hordes--finches, buntings, and larks in thousands on thousands, with a sprinkling of pipits and pied and grey wagtails, all busily feeding on the stubble and fresh ploughed land.
Thickly and evenly distributed, they appeared to the vision ranging over the brown level expanse as minute animated and variously coloured clods--black and brown and grey and yellow and olive-green.
It was a rare pleasure to be in this company, to revel in their astonishing numbers, to feast my soul on them as it were--little birds in such multitudes that ten thousand Frenchmen and Italians might have gorged to repletion on their small succulent bodies--and to reflect that they were safe from persecution so long as they remained here in England.

This is something for an Englishman to be proud of.
After spending two hours at Crux Easton, with that dense immovable fog close by, I at length took the plunge to get to Highclere.

What a change! I was at once where all form and colour and melody had been blotted out.

My clothes were hoary with clinging mist, my fingers numb with cold, and Highclere, its scattered cottages appearing like dim smudges through the whiteness, was the dreariest village on earth.