BIRDS IN A VILLAGE 55 



savage animal of the cat kind; and still the quaint 

 figure eluded my vision. 



At last I began to have doubts about the 

 creature that emitted that strange, penetrating 

 call. First heard as a bird-call, and nothing more, 

 by degrees it grew more and more laugh-like a 

 long, far-reaching, ringing laugh; not the laugh 

 I should like to hear from any person I take an 

 interest in, but a laugh with all the gladness, 

 unction, and humanity gone out of it a dry 

 mechanical sound, as if a soulless, lifeless, wind- 

 instrument had laughed. It was very curious. 

 Listening to it day by day, something of the 

 strange history of the being once but no longer 

 human, that uttered it grew up and took shape in 

 my mind; for we all have in us something of 

 this mysterious faculty. It was no bird, no wry- 

 neck, but a being that once, long, long, long ago, in 

 that same beautiful place, had been a village boy 

 a free, careless, glad-hearted boy, like many 

 another. But to this boy life was more than to 

 others, since nature appeared immeasurably more 

 vivid on account of his brighter senses; therefore 

 his love of life and happiness in life greatly sur- 

 passed theirs. Annually the trees shed their 



