144 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



water and sit there for an hour or so I heard the same 

 delicate wandering aerial sound, the thin plaintive note 

 of the same little bird, a willow wren, which had taken 

 up its summer-end residence at that spot. I do not 

 mean a song ; a little bird when moulting concealed in 

 a thick shrubbery, has no heart to sing : it was only 

 his familiar faint little sorrowful call-note. 



People came in numbers at certain hours of the day 

 to the spring and pavilion to drink water and sit in 

 groups chatting, flirting, laughing, or to pace the 

 walks, while the children ran and romped about 

 the green lawns or sailed their little boats on the 

 running water ; and by-and-by the crowd would 

 begin to drift away as meal time approached, until 

 the gardens would be silent and deserted. But the 

 small bird was always there, and though hidden among 

 the bushes where they grew thickest he was not wholly 

 invisible. At intervals his minute shadowy flitting 

 form could be discerned at some spot where there was 

 a slight opening among the dense clustered leaves, seen 

 for a moment or two, then gone. And even when 

 the place was fullest of people and the sound of talk 

 and laughter loudest, still at brief intervals that faint, 

 tenuous, sorrowful little sound would be audible 

 through it all. Listening for it and hearing it, and 

 sometimes catching a glimpse of the small restless 

 creature among the deep green foliage near my seat, 

 a curious mental change would come over me. The 

 sense of dissatisfaction, of disharmony, would pass 

 away ; the pavilion, the kiosks, the gravelled walks and 



