THE LAKE VILLAGE 197 



that an estuary which was eventually cut off from the 

 Severn Sea tiirough the siltin},' up of the sand at its 

 mouth. And I was also in that same shallow inland 

 sea or lake, unmoved by tides, which had been growing 

 shallower year by year for centuries with a rank aquatic 

 vegetation spreading over it as far as the eye could see 

 — a green watery world. I could hear the wind in tiie 

 bulrushes — miles on miles of dark polished stems, tufted 

 with ruddy brown: that low, mysterious sound is to 

 me the most fascinating of all the many voices of the 

 wind. The feeling is partly due to early associations, 

 to boyhood, when I used to ride into the vast marshes 

 of the pampas in places where, sitting on my horse, the 

 tufted tops of the bulrushes were on a level with my 

 face. I sought for birds' nests, above all for that of the 

 strange little bittern. It was a great prize, that small 

 platform of yellow sedge leaves, a foot or two above 

 the water, with three oval eggs no bigger than pigeon's 

 eggs resting on it, of a green so soft, brilliant, inde- 

 scribably lovely, that the sight of them would thrill 

 me like some shining supernatural thing or some heavenly 

 melody. 



Or on a windy day when I would sit by the margin 

 to listen to the sound unlike any other made by the 

 wind in the green world. It was not continuous, nor 

 one, like the sea-like sound of the pines, but in gusts 

 from this part or that all round you, now startlingly 

 loud, then quickly falling to low murmurings, always 

 with something human in it, but wilder, sadder, more 

 airy than a human voice, as of ghost-like beings, invisible 



