CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



nests. At each particular barn-door, when the farmers 

 were at work, you might have thought you saw the 

 entire sparrow population of the parish. Seldom a 

 Sabbath, during pairing, building, breeding, nursing, 

 and training season, could you hear a single syllable 

 of the sermon for their sakes, all a-huddle and a-chirp 

 in the belfry and among the old loose slates. On every 

 stercoraceous deposit on coach, cart, or bridle road, 

 they were busy on grain and pulse; and, in spite of 

 cur and cat, legions embrowned every cottage garden. 

 Emigration itself in many million families would have 

 left no perceptible void; and the inexterminable mul- 

 titude would have laughed at the Plague. 



The other small birds of the parish began to feel 

 their security from our shot, and sung their best, un- 

 scared on hedge, bush, and tree. Perhaps, too, for sake 

 of their own sweet strains, we spared the lyrists of 

 Scotland, the linnet and the lark, the one in the yel- 

 low broom, the other beneath the rosy cloud while 

 there was ever a sevenfold red shield before Robin's 

 breast, whether flitting silent as a falling leaf, or trill- 

 ing his autumnal lay on the rigging or pointed gable- 

 end of barn or byre. Now and then the large bunting, 

 conspicuous on a top-twig, and proud of his rustic 

 psalmody, tempted his own doom or the cunning 

 stone-chat, glancing about the old dikes, usually shot 

 at in vain or yellow-hammer, under the ban of the 

 [56] 



