noon
My friend Yorkshire Dick said this , with that curious gypsy intonation that turns English into a foreign tongue if you forget the words and listen only to the voice . He was squatting in the sunshine , with his back against an oak sapling , a black cutty under his nose , and Meg , my small fox-terrier , between his thighs . In those days , being just fifteen , I had taken a sketch-book and put myself to school under Dick to learn the lore of Things As They Are : and , as part of the course , we had been the death of a badger that morning -- Sunday morning . It was one of those days in autumn when the dews linger in the shade till noon and the blackberry grows too watery for the _ connoisseur _ . On the ridge where we loafed , the short turf was dry enough , and the sun strong between the sparse saplings ; but the paths that zigzagged down the thick coppice to right and left were soft to the foot , and streaked with the slimy tracks of snails . A fine blue mist filled the gulf on either hand , and beneath it mingled the voices of streams and of birds busy beside them . At the mouth of each valley a thicker column of blue smoke curled up like a feather -- that to the left rising from the kitchen chimney of my father 's cottage , that to the right from the encampment where Dick 's _ bouillon _ was simmering above a wood fire .