WILD WINGS: A FAREWELL 313 



threes and half-dozens, and in scores and more, an end- 

 less straggling procession of hoary Scandinavian or 

 "Danish" crows coming to winter in England. And 

 from time to time fieldfares, too, appeared, travelling 

 a little faster with an undulatory flight, but keeping 

 strictly to the crow-line; and these too appeared to be 

 fatigued and journeyed silently, and there was no sound 

 but the low swish of their wings. 



A morning and a bird-life to rejoice the heart of a 

 field naturalist ; yet this happiness were scarcely mine 

 before a contrary feeling supervened — the same old 

 ineffable sadness experienced on former occasions on 

 quitting some spot which had all unknown been growing 

 too dear to me. For no sooner am I conscious of such 

 an attachment — of this queer trick of the vegetative 

 nerves in throwing out countless invisible filaments to 

 fasten themselves like tendrils to every object and 

 "every grass," or to root themselves in the soil, than 

 I am alarmed and make haste to sever these inconvenient 

 threads before they get too strong for me, and take my 

 final departure from that place. For why should these 

 fields, these houses and trees, these cattle and sheep and 

 birds, these men and women and children be more to 

 me than others anywhere in the land? 



However, I made no desperate vow on this occasion: 

 the recollection of the wild geese prevented me from 

 saying a word which could never be unsaid. I had 

 planned to go that morning and bade a simple goodbye: 

 nevertheless my heart was heavy in me and it was 

 perhaps a prophetic heart. 



