CHAPTER X. 



FLITTERMICE. 



" And all the silent swirl 

 Of bats that seem to follow in the air 

 Some grand circumference of a shadowy dome 

 To which we are blind." E. B. BROWNING. 



How like you, reader, these silent swirlers of the sum- 

 mer night flittermice, as they are called by the kindly 

 simple folk of some parts of England ? Are they pleasant 

 to you, or repulsive ? Harbingers of good or ill ? My own 

 feelings are of a somewhat mixed character. These quaint 

 aside-thoughts of nature's have for me varied and contra- 

 dictory associations. Shall I confess that, in the days gone 

 by and in certain moods, bats have seemed to me like un- 

 canny messengers from the mysterious under-world of 

 goblins and ghouls ? Yes : and I confess that even now 

 bats can be for me unconquerably uncanny smile who will 

 at the confession. And oddly enough, such is the power 

 of the association of ideas, whenever I think of the little 

 harpies in this connection there always rises before my 

 mind's eye a vision of the incantation scene in Der 

 Freischutz when Caspar casts the magic bullets. The 

 dim light, the flashing gleams of red fire, the weird un- 

 earthly music, and the general sense of breathless and ex- 

 pectant dread, cluster round, and are in a sense symbolized 



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