COUNTRY SOUNDS 



time ; in the bed of the stream we wait for the 

 oyster-catcher's alarm-whistle keep-keep ; by the 

 estuary we enjoy the redshank's warning call with a 

 pleasant trill in it, which the male raises to a higher 

 power in spring ; among the furze-bushes beside the 

 dry wall the stonechats seem to " chap " the stones 

 together ; the peewits cry plaintively from the 

 farmer's fields ; as we take a short cut across the 

 heathery " preserve," grouse after grouse proclaims 

 our trespass with a ridiculously silly cachinnation 

 kok-kok-kok ; but best of all we like " the moan of 

 doves from immemorial elms." 



Around all the country-sounds that have become 

 dear to us there have gathered memories, associa- 

 tions, ideas, and we hear with more than the hearing 

 of the ear. There are wonderful " wireless " mes- 

 sages which the imagination can catch. As we walk 

 at nightfall across the common, noiselessly we think, 

 a dog barks just once or twice from a cottage door 

 half a mile away, and then, before the utter quietness 

 is resumed, we hear the children turn in bed, the 

 click-clack of their mother's knitting-needles, ' the 

 rustle of the newspaper which the shepherd is reading 

 by the fireside. So is it with the other familiar 

 country sounds ; we hear not them alone, but what 

 they are symbols and echoes of ; for man is ever 

 reading himself into the so-called outer world. It 

 is his particular magic to hear in the lark's miracle 

 of song the music of Shelley and the wisdom of 

 Meredith, to infer the cherubim from the chaffinch, 

 and to find in the " lily -muffled hum o a summer bee 

 some coupling with the spinning stars." 



165 



