THE PAGEANT OF SUMMER. 53 



boom startles them, and they instantly defy the sky. 

 The rabbits quietly feed on out in the field between 

 the thistles and rushes that so often grow in woodside 

 pastures, quietly hopping to their favourite places, 

 utterly heedless how heavy the echoes may be in the 

 hollows of the wooded hills. Till the rain comes they 

 take no heed whatever, but then make for shelter. 

 Blackbirds often make a good deal of noise ; but the 

 soft turtle-doves coo gently, let the lightning be as 

 savage as it will. Nothing has the least fear. Man 

 alone, more senseless than a pigeon, put a god in 

 vapour ; and to this day, though the printing press has 

 set a foot on every threshold, numbers bow the knee 

 when they hear the roar the timid dove does not heed. 

 So trustful are the doves, the squirrels, the birds of the 

 branches, and the creatures of the field. Under their 

 tuition let us rid ourselves of mental terrors, and face 

 death itself as calmly as they do the livid lightning ; 

 so trustful and so content with their fate, resting in 

 themselves and unappalled. If but by reason and will 

 I could reach the godlike calm and courage of what we 

 so thoughtlessly call the timid turtle-dove, I should 

 lead a nearly perfect life. 



The bark of the ancient apple tree under which I 

 have been standing is shrunken like iron which has 

 been heated and let cool round the rim of a wheel. 

 For a hundred years the horses have rubbed against it 

 while feeding in the aftermath. The scales of the bark 

 are gone or smoothed down and level, so that insects 

 have no hiding-place. There are no crevices for them, 

 the horsehairs that were caught anywhere have been 

 carried away by birds for their nests. The trunk is 



