The very earth within those walls had a reddish cast owing to the innumerable fragments of red tile and tessera mixed with it.

Larks and finches were busily searching for seeds in the reddish-brown soil.

They would soon be gone to their roosting-places and the tired men to their cottages, and the white owl coming from his hiding-place in the walls would have old Silchester to himself, as he has had it since the cries and moans of the conquered died into silence so long ago..