The shepherd certainly was right; the quantity of nuts was immense:  the best and largest bunches grew at the edge of the thickets, perhaps because they received more air and light than the bushes within that were surrounded by boughs.  It thus happened that we were in the green pathway when some one suddenly spoke from behind, and, turning, there was a man in a velveteen jacket who had just stepped out of the bushes.  The keeper was pleasant enough and readily allowed us to handle his gun—­a very good weapon, though a little thin at the muzzle—­for a man likes to see his gun admired.  He said there were finer nuts in a valley he pointed out, and then carefully instructed us how to get back into the waggon track without returning by the same path.  An old barn was the landmark; and, with a request from him not to break the bushes, he left us.

Down in the wooded vale we paused.  The whole thing was now clear:  the hare in the wire was a trap laid for the ‘gips’ whose camp was below.  The keeper had been waiting about doubtless where he could command the various tracks up the hill, had seen us come that way, and did not wish us to return in the same direction; because if the ‘gip’ saw any one at all he would not approach his snare.  Whether the hare had actually been caught by the wire, or had been put in by the keeper, it was not easy to tell.

We wandered on in the valley wood, going from bush to bush, little heeding whither we went.  There are no woods so silent as the nut-tree; there is scarce a sound in them at that time except the occasional rustle of a rabbit, and the ‘thump, thump’ they sometimes make underground in their buries after a sudden fright.  So that the keen plaintive whistle of a kingfisher was almost startling.  But we soon found the stream in the hollow.  Broader than a brook and yet not quite a river, it flowed swift and clear, so that every flint at the bottom was visible.  The nut-tree bushes came down to the edge:  the ground was too firm for much rush or sedge; the streams that come out of the chalk are not so thickly fringed with vegetation as others.

Some little way along there was a rounded sarsen boulder not far from shore, whose brown top was so nearly on a level with the surface that at one moment the water just covered it, and the next left it exposed.  By it we spied a trout; but the hill above gave ‘Velvet’ the command of the hollow; and it was too risky even to think of.  After that the nuts were tame; there was nothing left but to turn homewards.  As for trout-fishing, there is nothing so easy.  Take the top joint off the rod, and put the wire on the second, which is stronger, fill the basket, and replace the fly.  There were fellows who used to paddle in canoes up a certain river (not this little stream), pick out the largest trout, and shoot them with pistols, under pretence of practising at water-rats.

CHAPTER V