98 THE LIFE OF THE FIELDS. 



with twigs, leaves, and tree dust, big as three rooks' 

 nests. Only recently a fine white-tailed eagle was 

 soaring over the woods ; he may have followed the line 

 of the sea down from the Hebrides. Up from the sea 

 comes the wind, drawing swifter between the beech 

 trunks, resting a little in the sunny glades, on again 

 into the woods. The glass-green river yonder coloured 

 by the wind runs on seaward, there are thin masts of 

 ships visible at its mouth miles away, the wind 

 whistles in their shrouds; beyond the blue by the 

 shore, far, far distant on the level cloud, the dim ship 

 has sailed along the horizon. It dries the pale grass, 

 and rustles the restless shrunken leaves on the ground ; 

 it dries the grey lichen on the beech trunks ; it swings 

 the fledglings in the rooks' nests, and carries the ring- 

 dove on a speedier wing. Blackbirds whistle all 

 around, the woods are full of them ; willow-wrens 

 plaintively sing in the trees ; other birds call — the dry 

 wind mingles their notes. It is a hungry wind — it 

 makes a wanderer as hungry as Robin Hood ; it 

 drives him back to the houses, and there by a door- 

 step lies a heap of bucks'-horns thrown down like an 

 armful of wood. 



