154 THE RING OF NATURE 



out on the water. The ducks are perhaps talking 

 in their sleep. I know one of the voices for that 

 of a shell-drake telling his wife that there is really 

 nothing to be afraid of. Fowlers can tell every 

 species in the dark by striking a match at the edge 

 of the broad, when out of the darkness there 

 comes a sort of roll-call answer from individuals 

 of many flocks. Perhaps the fox can tell. As I am 

 coming from the lake I catch a whiff of his trail. 

 Possibly, knowing his superiority in the dark he 

 allows me to walk within a few feet of him. 



The scent of the gorse is hushed. It needs the 

 hot sunlight to bring out that. The white scut of 

 a rabbit flashes, and the dry prickles crackle as 

 he gains the interior of a bush. Perhaps I have 

 inadvertently saved his life, for in a neighbouring 

 cave, blacker than the black of the landscape, two 

 luminous eyes stare, then oscillate and vanish as 

 some cottage cat swears to itself and goes off. 



I am now high under heaven on a dry bank of 

 the hill, whence I can see by daylight many miles 

 in three directions. But now I can only see with 

 my ears. The rumble of a train five miles away 

 tells me that there is a trail of white smoke between 

 Chapel Hill and Oakton, or a trail of smoke that 

 would be white if there were light to make it so. 

 The train passes or a whiff of wind takes the sound 

 elsewhere, and silence falls again so thick that I 

 hear a leaf rustle as a beetle crawls over it. Then 

 out of the far quiet comes the tick of a horse's 

 hoof on the road. 



