74 THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



coming. While I have been dreaming, all these and 

 hundreds out in the meadow have been intensely 

 happy. So concentrated on their little work in the 

 sunshine, so intent on the tiny Qgg, on the insect 

 captured on the grass-tip to be carried to the eager 

 fledglings, so joyful in listening to the song poured 

 out for them or in pouring it forth, quite oblivious of 

 all else. It is in this intense concentration that they 

 are so happy. If they could only live longer ! — but a 

 few such seasons for them — I wish they could live a 

 hundred years just to feast on the seeds and sing and 

 be utterly happy and oblivious of everything but the 

 moment they are passing. A black line has rushed up 

 from the espalier apple yonder to the housetop thirty 

 times at least. The starlings fly so swiftly and so 

 straight that they seem to leave a black line along the 

 air. They have a nest in the roof, they are to and fro 

 it and the meadow the entire day, from dawn till eve. 

 The espalier apple, like a screen, hides the meadow 

 from me, so that the descending starlings appear to 

 dive into a space behind it. Sloping downwards the 

 meadow makes a valley ; I cannot see it, but know 

 that it is golden with buttercups, and that a brook 

 runs in the groove of it. 



Afar yonder I can see a summit beyond where the 

 grass swells upwards to a higher level than this spot. 

 There are bushes and elms whose height is decreased 

 by distance on the summit, horses in the shadow of the 

 trees, and a small flock of sheep crowded, as is their 

 wont, in the hot and sunny gateway. By the side of 

 the summit is a deep green trench, so it looks from 

 here, in the hill-side : it is really the course of a 



