On the other side of the hedge there were groups of fine old beech trees and, strange to see, just beyond the green slope and coloured trees, was the great whiteness of the fog which had advanced thus far and now appeared motionless.  I went down and walked by the side of the bank of mist, feeling its clammy coldness on one cheek while the other was fanned by the warm bright air.  Seen at a distance of a couple of hundred yards, the appearance was that of a beautiful pearly-white cloud resting upon the earth.  Many fogs had I seen, but never one like this, so substantial-looking, so sharply defined, standing like a vast white wall or flat-topped hill at the foot of the green sunlit slope!  I had the fancy that if I had been an artist in sculpture, and rapid modeller, by using the edge of my hand as a knife I could have roughly carved out a human figure, then drawing it gently out of the mass proceeded to press and work it to a better shape, the shape, let us say, of a beautiful woman.  Then, if it were done excellently, and some man-mocking deity, or power of the air, happened to be looking on, he would breathe life and intelligence into it, and send it, or her, abroad to mix with human kind and complicate their affairs.  For she would seem a woman and would be like some women we have known, beautiful with blue flower-like eyes, pale gold or honey-coloured hair; very white of skin, Leightonian, almost diaphanous, so delicate as to make all other skins appear coarse and made of clay.  And with her beauty and a mysterious sweetness not of the heart, since no heart there would be in that mist-cold body, she would draw all hearts, ever inspiring, but never satisfying passion, her beauty and alluring smiles being but the brightness of a cloud on which the sun is shining.

Birds, driven by the fog to that sunlit spot, were all about me in incredible numbers.  Rooks and daws were congregating on the bushes, where their black figures served to intensify the red-gold tints of the foliage.  At intervals the entire vast cawing multitude simultaneously rose up with a sound as of many waters, and appeared now at last about to mount up into the blue heavens, to float circling there far above the world as they are accustomed to do on warm windless days in autumn.  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.