In the broken
land through which they made their way, a land of trees and moorland,
with here and there a cultivated patch, the yellow gorse still glowed
in unexpected corners; queer, scentless flowers made splashes of
colour in the hedgerows; a rabbit scurried sometimes across their
path; a cock pheasant, after a moment's amazed stare, lowered his
head and rushed for unnecessary shelter. The longer they looked
upwards, the bluer seemed the sky. The grass beneath their feet was
as green and soft as in springtime. Driven by the wind, here and
there a white-winged gull sailed over their heads,--a cloud of them
rested upon a freshly turned little square of ploughed land between
two woods. A flight of pigeons, like torn leaves tossed about by
the wind, circled and drifted above them. Philippa seated herself
upon the trunk of a fallen tree and gazed contentedly about her.
"If I had a looking-glass and a few more hairpins, I should be
perfectly happy," she sighed. "I am sure my hair must look awful."
Helen glanced at it admiringly.
"I decline to say the correct thing," she declared. "I will only
remind you that there will be no one here to look at it."
"I am not so sure," Philippa replied. "These are the woods which
the special constables haunt by day and by night. They gaze up
every tree trunk for a wireless installation, and they lie behind
hedges and watch for mysterious flashes.
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