CHRISTOPHER IN HIS SPORTING JACKET 



instinct and therefore the awe-struck heart of the 

 night- wandering boy beats to hear the league-long 

 gabble that probably has winged its wedge-like way 

 from the lakes, and marshes, and dreary morasses 

 of Siberia, from Lapland, or Iceland, or the unfre- 

 quented and unknown northern regions of America 

 regions set apart, quoth Bewick we believe, for sum- 

 mer residences and breeding places, and where they 

 are amply provided with a variety of food, a large 

 portion of which must consist of the larvae of gnats, 

 and myriads of insects, there fostered by the unsetting 

 sun ! Now they are gabbling good Gaelic over a High- 

 land night-moor. Perhaps in another hour the de- 

 scending cloud will be covering the wide waters at 

 the head of the wild Loch Maree or, silent and 

 asleep, the whole host be riding at anchor around 

 Lomond's Isles! 



But 'tis now mid-day and lo! in that mediterra- 

 nean a flock of wild Swans! Have they dropt down 

 from the ether into the water almost as pure as ether, 

 without having once folded their wings, since they 

 rose aloft to shun the insupportable northern snows 

 hundreds of leagues beyond the storm-swept Orcades? 

 To look at the quiet creatures, you might think that 

 they had never left the circle of that little loch. 

 There they hang on their shadows, even as if asleep 

 in the sunshine; and now stretching out their long 

 [87] 



