It was roughest and coldest up there, and suited my temper best, for when the weather seems spiteful one finds a grim sort of satisfaction in defying it.  On a genial day it would have been very pleasant on that lofty plain, for the flat top of the vast down is like a plain in appearance, and the earthworks on it show that it was once a populous habitation of man.  Now because of the wind and cloud its aspect was bare and bleak and desolate, and after roaming about for an hour, exploring the thickest furze patches, I began to think that my day would have to be spent in solitude, without a living creature to keep me company.  The birds had apparently all been blown away and the rabbits were staying at home in their burrows.  Not even an insect could I see, although the furze was in full blossom; the honey-suckers were out of sight and torpid, and the bloom itself could no longer look “unprofitably gay,” as the poet says it does.  “Not even a wheatear!” I said, for I had counted on that bird in the intervals between the storms, although I knew I should not hear his wild delightful warble in such weather.

Then, all at once, I beheld that very bird, a solitary female, flittering on over the flat ground before me, perching on the little green ant-mounds and flirting its tail and bobbing as if greatly excited at my presence in that lonely place.  I wondered where its mate was, following it from place to place as it flew, determined now I had found a bird to keep it in sight.  Presently a great blackness appeared low down in the cloudy sky, and rose and spread, travelling fast towards me, and the little wheatear fled in fear from it and vanished from sight over the rim of the down.  But I was there to defy the weather, and so instead of following the bird in search of shelter I sat down among some low furze bushes and waited and watched.  By and by I caught sight of three magpies, rising one by one at long intervals from the furze and flying laboriously towards a distant hill-top grove of pines.  Then I heard the wailing cry of a peewit, and caught sight of the bird at a distance, and soon afterwards a sound of another character—­the harsh angry cry of a carrion crow, almost as deep as the raven’s angry voice.  Before long I discovered the bird at a great height coming towards me in hot pursuit of a kestrel.  They passed directly over me so that I had them a long time in sight, the kestrel travelling quietly on in the face of the wind, the crow toiling after, and at intervals spurting till he got near enough to hurl himself at his enemy, emitting his croaks of rage.  For invariably the kestrel with one of his sudden swallow-like turns avoided the blow and went on as before.  I watched them until they were lost to sight in the coming blackness and wondered that so intelligent a creature as a crow should waste his energies in that vain chase.  Still one could understand it and even sympathize with him.  For the kestrel is a most insulting creature towards the bigger birds.  He knows that they are incapable of paying him out, and when he finds them off their guard he will drop down and inflict a blow just for the fun of the thing.  This outraged crow appeared determined to have his revenge.