100 A HUNT FOB THE NIGHTINGALE. 



kindly. He had a fine collection of birds and ani 

 mals, in which he took great pride. He pointed out 

 the wood-lark and the blackcap to me, and told me 

 where he had seen and heard them. He said I was 

 too late for the nightingale, though I might possibly 

 find one yet in song. But he said she grew hoarse 

 late in the season, and did not sing as a few weeks 

 earlier. He thought our cardinal grosbeak, which 

 he called the Virginia nightingale, as fine a whistler 

 as the nightingale herself. He could not go with me 

 that day, but he would send his boy. Summoning 

 the lad, he gave him minute directions where to take 

 me over by Easing, around by Shackerford church, 

 etc., a circuit of four or five miles. Leaving the pic- 

 turesque old town, we took a road over a broad, 

 gentle hill, lined with great trees, beeches, elms, 

 oaks, with rich cultivated fields beyond. The air 

 of peaceful and prosperous human occupancy which 

 everywhere pervades this land seemed especially pro- 

 nounced through all this section. The sentiment of 

 parks and lawns, easy, large, basking, indifferent of 

 admiration, self-sufficing, and full, everywhere pre- 

 vailed. The road was like the most perfect private 

 carriage-way. Homeliness, in its true sense, is a word 

 that applies to nearly all English country scenes ; 

 homelike, redolent of affectionate care and toil, satu- 

 rated with rural and domestic contentment ; beauty 

 without pride, order without stiffness, age without de- 

 cay. This people love the country, because it would 

 seem as if the country must first have loved them. 



