rustle of the leaves, and the plaintive cry of a buzzard hawk hunting
over the little tor across the river. There were nearly always two up
there, quartering the sky. To the boy it was lovely, that silence--like
Nature talking to you--Nature always talked in silences. The beasts, the
birds, the insects, only really showed themselves when you were still;
you had to be awfully quiet, too, for flowers and plants, otherwise you
couldn't see the real jolly separate life there was in them. Even the
boulders down there, that old Godden thought had been washed up by the
Flood, never showed you what queer shapes they had, and let you feel
close to them, unless you were thinking of nothing else. Sylvia, after
all, was better in that way than he had expected. She could keep quiet
(he had thought girls hopeless); she was gentle, and it was rather jolly
to watch her. Through the leaves there came the faint far tinkle of the
tea-bell.

She said: "We must get down."

It was much too jolly to go in, really. But if she wanted her tea--girls
always wanted tea! And, twisting the cord carefully round the branch, he
began to superintend her descent. About to follow, he heard her cry:

"Oh, Mark! I'm stuck--I'm stuck! I can't reach it with my foot! I'm
swinging!" And he saw that she WAS swinging by her hands and the cord.

"Let go; drop on to the branch below--the cord'll hold you straight till
you grab the trunk."

Her voice mounted piteously:

"I can't--I really can't--I should slip!"