A HUNT FOR THE NIGHTINGALE 99 



a quick, brilliant call or whistle, a few rods from 

 me, that at once recalled my barber with his blade 

 of grass, and I knew my long-sought bird was inflat- 

 ing her throat. How it woke me up! It had 

 the quality that startles; it pierced the gathering 

 gloom like a rocket. Then it ceased. Suspecting 

 I was too near the singer, I moved away cautiously, 

 and stood in a lane beside the wood, where a loping 

 hare regarded me a few paces away. Then my 

 singer struck up again, but I could see did not let 

 herself out; just tuning her instrument, I thought, 

 and getting ready to transfix the silence and the 

 darkness. A little later, a man and boy came up 

 the lane. I asked them if that was the nightingale 

 singing; they listened, and assured me it was none 

 other. "Now she's on, sir; now she 's on. Ah! 

 but she don't stick. In May, sir, they makes the 

 woods all heccho about here. Now she 's on again; 

 that's her, sir; now she's off; she won't stick." 

 And stick she would not. I could hear a hoarse 

 wheezing and clucking sound beneath her notes, 

 when I listened intently. The man and boy moved 

 away. I stood mutely invoking all the gentle 

 divinities to spur the bird on. Just then a bird 

 like our hermit thrush came quickly over the hedge 

 a few yards below me, swept close past my face, 

 and back into the thicket. I had been caught lis- 

 tening; the offended bird had found me taking 

 notes of her dry and worn-out pipe there behind 

 the hedge, and the concert abruptly ended; not 

 another note; not a whisper. I waited a long time 



