NIGH T WI TCHER V. 



57 



Who has listened to the aeolian - harp of the telegraph ? 

 What wondrous harmony is here wooed from the passing breeze, 

 or almost from the calm air itself or from some remote tem- 

 pest, perhaps and reverberated in cathedral tones to the ear 

 laid close against the resonant, weather-seasoned pole ! Did the 

 reader ever listen close against the dead pine-tree and marvel 

 at the sounds of teeming life thus disclosed within life which 

 knows no night nor day nor rest? Think you that the wood- 

 pecker in its snug cave aloft, or the squirrel in the hollow rail, 

 has heard your stealthy footfall through its door- way? No; the 

 tidings have come through turf and root and trunk, vibrated into 

 their being. If you would know the haunting tenants of the si- 

 lent beech by your side in the dark woods, lay your ear closely 

 against its bark, when, if the trunk be roughly struck, the slight- 

 est movement within its heart is betrayed in the vibrant wood 

 and conducted to your ear. More than once in my strolls have 

 I thus listened beneath the flicker's hole, and heard the clinging 

 claws apparently beneath the bark at my ear as the sharp head 

 peered out from the little round door- way aloft. 



