COUNTRY LIFE STANDING on the bank at the side of
the road, I looked into the coppice at the hazels and blackberry bushes; the blackthorns and the holly. The few larger trees, one or two oaks and beeches, had made a carpet of leaves that covered the ground. There was no breeze. It was a cold afternoon, and two or three pigeons sat motionless up on the top side of the coppice. A crow cawed at intervals as the carrion does on a wintry day. Nothing moved among the leaves. The recently- scraped earth at the mouths of rabbit-holes was dusted with frost. The ditch flowed silently among the broken sticks and twigs that obstructed its course every few yards. I was impressed with the quiet- ness of the afternoon. When I turned away and began walking down the road, I noticed a dead jackdaw at the bottom of an ash-tree. The bird had died from natural causes as far as I could tell. Its feet were clenched, and the claws or toes were caked with dung, as was the beak. Perhaps something it had picked for a meal had caused it to suffocate. A little while before I had been watching its brothers flying across a field in the company of rooks. Because the day was bleak, there had been no conversation in the flight, and they had gone soundlessly into the elms of a wood on a hill to await the coming of night.
Previous page
