90 FRESH FIELDS 



it was repaired and looked after the same as the 

 highway. Indeed, it was a public way, public to 

 pedestrians only, and no man could stop or turn it 

 aside. We followed it along the side of a steep 

 hill, with copses and groves sweeping down into 

 the valley below us. It was as wild and pic- 

 turesque a spot as I had seen in England. The 

 foxglove pierced the lower foliage and wild growths 

 everywhere with its tall spires of purple flowers; 

 the wild honeysuckle, with a ranker and coarser 

 fragrance than our cultivated species, was just open- 

 ing along the hedges. We paused here, and my 

 guide blew his shrill call; he blew it again and 

 again. How it awoke the echoes, and how it 

 awoke all the other songsters! The valley below 

 us and the slope beyond, which before were silent, 

 were soon musical. The chaffinch, the robin, the 

 blackbird, the thrush — the last the loudest and 

 most copious — seemed to vie with each other and 

 with the loud whistler above them. But we lis- 

 tened in vain for the nightingale's note. Twice 

 my guide struck an attitude and said, impressively, 

 "There! I believe I 'erd 'er." But we were 

 obliged to give it up. A shower came on, and 

 after it had passed we moved to another part of the 

 landscape and repeated our call, but got no response, 

 and as darkness set in we returned to the village. 



The situation began to look serious. I knew 

 there was a nightingale somewhere whose brood had 

 been delayed from some cause or other, and who 

 was therefore still in song, but I could not get a 



