74 A PHILOSOPHER WITH NATURE 



and crash of wheels echoed up here, and the tail- 

 lights of the Continental express flashed through 

 the trees ; but shadowy and unreal seems the world 

 to which such life belongs, a part of a far-off existence 

 which has no touch or communication with these 

 rural fastnesses. It is a silent land. Celt and 

 Roman and Saxon alike have carried highways of 

 the world through it. But it is still silent ; now, 

 as ever, the life of the highways tarries not in these 

 solitudes which sleep between London and the 

 southern sea. 



Chur-r-r-r-r ! distinct and eerie, the sound comes 

 up the hillside, the air vibrating with the harsh 

 rolling note. Now it is answered by a similar sound, 

 and the belt of small oaks and bracken below seems 

 suddenly possessed by a troop of invisible spirits. 

 It is the fern-owl, or night-jar, calling to his mate 

 a sound which has caused a growth of superstition 

 to follow the bird into every land in which it has 

 travelled. The female, who nests on the ground, is 

 usually sitting when the male makes the night air 

 thrill with his strange note. The bird is heard here 

 only about this season. Out of the unknown it 

 comes with the rising year, and thither it returns 

 with its decline, reaching here on the crest of that 

 great migratory wave of life from the south, of 

 which we know so little, and which now, almost 

 with the summer solstice, will turn again as mys- 

 teriously as it came. 



Slowly the splendid summer night opens out as 

 the ground still rises. Far away in the north, in 

 the direction of London, a soft opal light hangs upon 

 the horizon. It is the fringe of twilight from the 

 midnight sun circling below the horizon, though it 



