Afoot in England

ach day some new thing. Yet the distance has the same fascination for him as for another-the call is as sweet and persistent in his ears. If he is on a green level country with blue hills on

ed coat among the oaks in their fresh green foliage, full of fun as a bright child, eating his apple like a child, only

e to do in those places, but the call made me glad to go. And long weeks-months-went by in my wanderings, mostly in open downland country, too often under gloomy skies, chilled by cold winds and wetted

ter day near the end of an unpleasant summer, with the wind back in the old hateful north-east quarter; but the sun shone, the sky was blue, and the flying clouds were of a dazzling whiteness. Shivering, I remembered the south

ts, wrens, dunnocks, thrushes, blackbirds, chaffinches, yellowhammers-were congregated on the lower outside twigs of a bramble bush and on the bare ground beside it close to the foot of the wall. The sun shone full on that spot, and they had met for warmth and for company. The tits and wrens were moving quietly about in the bush; others were sitting idly or preening their feathers on the twigs or the ground. Most of them were making some kind of small sound-little exclamatory chirps, and a variety of chirrupings, producing the effect of a pleasant conversation going on among them. This was suddenly suspended on my appearance, but the alarm was soon over, and, se

he could not always escape them. His spiritlessness served to inspire the chaffinch with greater boldness, and then it appeared that the gay little creature was really and truly incensed, possibly because the rusty, draggled, and listless appearance of the larger bird was offensive to him. Anyhow, the persecutions continued, increasing in fury until they could not be borne, and the blackbird tried to escape by hiding in the bramble. But he was not permitted to rest there; out he was soon driven and away into another bush, and again into still another furthe

other. "What, rags and tatters, back again so soon!" I seem to hear him say. "You miserable travesty of a bird, scarcely fit for a weasel to dine on! Your p

sick one. Into the bush they went, but in a moment they were out again, darting this way and that, now high up in the trees, now down to the ground, the blackbird always close behind; and no little bird flying from a hawk could have exhibited a greater terror than that pert chaf

a most entertaining comedy in bird life with a very proper ending. It was clear that the sick blackbird had bitterly resented the treatment he had received; that, brooding o

n the crumbling dust for that small harvest. Yet I could understand and even appreciate their work, although it is probable that the glow I experienced was in part reflected. Perhaps my mental attitude, when standing in that sheltered place, and when getting on to the windy wall I looked down on the workers and their work, was merely benevolent. I had pleasure in their pleasure, and a vague desire for a better understanding, a closer alliance and harmony. It was the desire that we might all see nature-the globe with all it contains-as one harmonious whole, not as groups of things, or phenomena, unrelated, cast there by chance or by careless or contemptuous gods. This dust of past ages, dug out of a wheat-field, with its fragments of men's work-its pottery and tiles and stones-this is a part, too, even as the small birds, with their little motives and passions, so like man's, are a part. I thought with self shame of my own sins in this connection; then, considering the lesser faults on the other side, I wished that Mr. St. John Hope would experience a like softening mood and regret

lue fly or fly of any colour, nor yellow wasp, nor any honey-eating or late honey-gathering insect that will not be here to feed on the ivy's sweetness. And behind the blossoming curtain, alive with the minute, multitudinous, swift

what byrdys

Howlet, tha