“I’ve just realized something,” said Colin “I felt the Edge was unusual, and now I know why. It’s the…”

“Birds,” said Gowther. “Theer is none. Not worth speaking of, onyroad. Flies, yes; but birds, no. It’s always been like that, to my knowledge, and I Conner think why it should be. You’d think, with all them trees and such-like, you’d have as mony as you find here, but, considering the size of the place theer’s hardly a throstle to be found from Squirrel’s Jump to Daniel Hill. Times been when!”ve wandered round theer half the day, and seen nobbut a pair of jays, and that was in Clockhouse wood. No, it’s very strange, when you come to weigh it up.”

Their way took them through a jungle of rhododendron. The ground was boggy and choked with dead wood, and they had to duck under low branches and climb over fallen trees: but, somehow, Gowther managed to carry his rod and line through it all without a snag, and he even seemed to know where he was going.

Susan thought how unpleasant it would be to have to move quickly through such country.

“Gowther,” she said, “are there any mines near here?”

“No, none at all, we’re almost on the plain now, and the mines are over the other side of the hill, behind us. Why do you ask?”

“Oh, I just wondered.”

The rhododendrons came to an end at the border of a mere, about half a mile long and a quarter wide.

“This is it,” said Gowther, sitting down on a fallen trunk which stretched out over the water. “It’s a trifle marshy, but we’re not easy to reach here, as theer’s some as might term this poaching. Now if you’ll open yon basket and pass the tin with the bait in it, we can settle down and make ourselves comfortable.”

After going out as far as he could along the tree to cast his rod. Gowther sat with his back against the roots and lit his pipe. Colin and Susan lay full length on the wrinkled bark and gazed into the mere.