The ploughboy understood them very well, for to have only a hunch of bread and little or no cheese was often his own case.
Two meadows distant from the lower woods of the Chace there is what seems from afar a remarkably wide hedge irregularly bordered with furze.

But on entering a gateway in it you find a bridge over a brook, which for some distance flows with a hedge on either side.

The low parapet of the bridge affords a seat--one of Cicely's favourite haunts--whence in spring it is pleasant to look up the brook; for the banks sloping down from the bushes to the water are yellow with primroses, and hung over with willow boughs.

As the brook is straight, the eye can see under these a long way up; and presently a kingfisher, bright with azure and ruddy hues, comes down the brook, flying but just above the surface on which his reflection travels too.

He perches for a moment on a branch close to the bridge, but the next sees that he is not alone, and instantly retreats with a shrill cry.
A moorhen ventures forth from under the arches, her favourite hiding-place, and feeds among the weeds by the shore, but at the least movement rushes back to shelter.