A HUNT FOR THE NIGHTINGALE. 91 



along. Nine o'clock came, and, though my ear was 

 attuned, the songster was tardy. I hovered about 

 the copses and hedge-rows like one meditating some 

 dark deed ; I lingered in a grove and about an over- 

 grown garden and a neglected orchard ; I sat on 

 stiles and leaned on wickets, mentally speeding the 

 darkness that should bring my singer out. The 

 weather was damp and chilly, and the tryst grew 

 tiresome. I had brought a rubber water-proof, but 

 not an overcoat. Lining the back of the rubber with 

 a newspaper, I wrapped it about me and sat down, 

 determined to lay siege to my bird. A foot-path that 

 ran along the fields and bushes on the other side of 

 the little valley showed every few minutes a woman 

 or girl, or boy or laborer, passing along it. A path 

 near me also had its frequent figures moving along 

 in the dusk. In this country people travel in foot- 

 paths as much as in highways. The paths give a 

 private, human touch to the landscape that the roads 

 do not. They are sacred to the human foot. They 

 have the sentiment of domesticity, and suggest the 

 way to cottage doors and to simple, primitive times. 



Presently a man with a fishing-rod, and capped, 

 coated, and booted for the work, came through the 

 meadow, and began casting for trout in the stream 

 below me. How he gave himself to the work ! how 

 oblivious he was of everything but the one matter in 

 hand ! I doubt if he was conscious of the train that 

 passed within a few rods of him. Your born angler 

 is like a hound that scents no game but that which he 



