A HUNT FOR THE NIGHTINGALE 97 



for the accommodation of local customers, mainly 

 of the laboring class. Instead of standing conspic- 

 uously on some street corner, as with us, they 

 usually stand on some byway, or some little paved 

 court away from the main thoroughfare. I could 

 have plenty of beer, said the landlord, but he had 

 not a mouthful of meat in the house. I urged my 

 needs, and finally got some rye-bread and cheese. 

 With this and a glass of home-brewed beer I was 

 fairly well fortified. At the appointed time I met 

 the cottager and went with him on his way home. 

 We walked two miles or more along a charming 

 road, full of wooded nooks and arbor-like vistas. 

 Why do English trees always look so sturdy, and 

 exhibit such massive repose, so unlike, in this 

 latter respect, to the nervous and agitated expres- 

 sion of most of our own foliage? Probably because 

 they have been a long time out of the woods, and 

 have had plenty of room in which to develop indi- 

 vidual traits and peculiarities ; then, in a deep fer- 

 tile soil, and a climate that does not hurry or over- 

 tax, they grow slow and last long, and come to 

 have the picturesqueness of age without its infirmi- 

 ties. The oak, the elm, the beech, all have more 

 striking profiles than in our country. 



Presently my companion pointed out to me a 

 small wood below the road that had a wide fringe 

 of bushes and saplings connecting it with a meadow, 

 amid which stood the tree-embowered house of a 

 city man, where he had heard the nightingale in 

 the morning; and then, farther along, showed me, 



