noon
And so he took me in his arms again and started off across the fields . I need not tell of that weary journey , and indeed could not , if I wished ; for the pain went to my head and filled me with such a drowsy anguish that I knew nothing except when some unlooked-for movement gave me a sharper twinge , and made me cry out . At first Elzevir walked briskly , but as the day wore on went slower , and was fain more than once to put me down and rest , till at last he could only carry me a hundred yards at a time . It was after noon , for the sun was past the meridian , and very hot for the time of year , when the face of the country began to change ; and instead of the short sward of the open down , sprinkled with tiny white snail-shells , the ground was brashy with flat stones , and divided up into tillage fields . It was a bleak wide-bitten place enough , looking as if ` twould never pay for turning , and instead of hedges there were dreary walls built of dry stone without mortar . Behind one of these walls , broken down in places , but held together with straggling ivy , and buttressed here and there with a bramble-bush , Elzevir put me down at length and said , ` I am beat , and can carry thee no farther for this present , though there is not now much farther to go . We have passed Purbeck Gates , and these walls will screen us from prying eyes if any chance comer pass along the down .