How refreshing it was after the glare, how rich, how dark!
Till he was out of it, he had not known how hot it had been on the
bare hill-side. Now he was aware of the sweat on his forehead, and a
dripping shirt.
Beech-stems rose in stately columns all about him. The floor was red
and brown mosaic, the roof a tracery of leaves intertwined with light.
Eastward the sun flashed as through a window. Close by a wood-pigeon
was praying.
Out of the aisle once again into the glare.
Now the Downs lay behind him, barren and dun. On his left-front the
rounded bosom of another beech-wood rose, in its midst a single
chestnut already rusting. Across the valley, behind a ridge, a blunt
church-tower and yellow-lichened roofs peeped. On the hill beyond, a
windmill cocked up against the sky.
He paid little attention, making straight for the flag of his country.
The cottage stood about a quarter of a mile away, conspicuously
solitary in the greensward, the Union Jack brave above it.
The boy approached, wary but swift. Out here on the open plain there
was no cover. He was exposed as a fly on a sheet of paper. Still
things couldn't be worse--he comforted himself with that most
comfortable of thoughts.
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