The Down dipped and rose again toward Chanctonbury Ring; a sparkle of far sea came into view, a sparrow-hawk hovered in the sun’s eye so that the blood-nourished brown of his wings gleamed nearly red.  Jon had a passion for birds, and an aptitude for sitting very still to watch them; keen-sighted, and with a memory for what interested him, on birds he was almost worth listening to.  But in Chanctonbury Ring there were none—­its great beech temple was empty of life, and almost chilly at this early hour; they came out willingly again into the sun on the far side.  It was Fleur’s turn now.  She spoke of dogs, and the way people treated them.  It was wicked to keep them on chains!  She would like to flog people who did that.  Jon was astonished to find her so humanitarian.  She knew a dog, it seemed, which some farmer near her home kept chained up at the end of his chicken run, in all weathers, till it had almost lost its voice from barking!

“And the misery is,” she said vehemently, “that if the poor thing didn’t bark at every one who passes it wouldn’t be kept there.  I do think men are cunning brutes.  I’ve let it go twice, on the sly; it’s nearly bitten me both times, and then it goes simply mad with joy; but it always runs back home at last, and they chain it up again.  If I had my way, I’d chain that man up.”  Jon saw her teeth and her eyes gleam.  “I’d brand him on his forehead with the word ‘Brute’; that would teach him!”

Jon agreed that it would be a good remedy.

“It’s their sense of property,” he said, “which makes people chain things.  The last generation thought of nothing but property; and that’s why there was the War.”

“Oh!” said Fleur, “I never thought of that.  Your people and mine quarrelled about property.  And anyway we’ve all got it—­at least, I suppose your people have.”

“Oh! yes, luckily; I don’t suppose I shall be any good at making money.”

“If you were, I don’t believe I should like you.”

Jon slipped his hand tremulously under her arm.  Fleur looked straight before her and chanted: 

“Jon, Jon, the farmer’s son, Stole a pig, and away he run!”

Jon’s arm crept round her waist.

“This is rather sudden,” said Fleur calmly; “do you often do it?”

Jon dropped his arm.  But when she laughed his arm stole back again; and Fleur began to sing: 

“O who will oer the downs so free, O who will with me ride?  O who will up and follow me—–­”

“Sing, Jon!”

Jon sang.  The larks joined in, sheep-bells, and an early morning church far away over in Steyning.  They went on from tune to tune, till Fleur said: 

“My God!  I am hungry now!”

“Oh!  I am sorry!”

She looked round into his face.

“Jon, you’re rather a darling.”

And she pressed his hand against her waist.  Jon almost reeled from happiness.  A yellow-and-white dog coursing a hare startled them apart.  They watched the two vanish down the slope, till Fleur said with a sigh:  “He’ll never catch it, thank goodness!  What’s the time?  Mine’s stopped.  I never wound it.”