104 A HUNT FOR THE NIGHTINGALE. 



I am quite sure I heard the chiding, guttural' note of 

 the bird I was after. Doubtless her brood had come 

 out that very day. Another girl had heard a night- 

 ingale on her way to school that morning and directed 

 me to the road ; still another pointed out to me the 

 white-throat and said that was my bird. This last 

 was a rude shock to my faith in the ornithology of 

 school-girls. Finally, I found a laborer breaking 

 stone by the roadside, a serious, honest-faced man, 

 who said he had heard my bird that morning on his 

 way to work ; he heard her every morning, and 

 nearly every night too. He heard her last night 

 after the shower (just at the hour when my barber 

 and I were trying to awaken her near Hazlemere), 

 and she sang as finely as ever she did. This was a 

 great lift. I felt that I could trust this man. He 

 said that after his day's work was done, that is, at 

 five o'clock, if I chose to accompany him on his way 

 home, he would show me where he had heard the 

 bird. This I gladly agreed to ; and remembering 

 that I had had no dinner, I sought out the inn in the 

 village and asked for something to eat. The un- 

 wonted request so startled the landlord that he came 

 out from behind his inclosed bar, and confronted me 

 with good-humored curiosity. These back-country 

 English inns, as I several times found to my discom- 

 fiture, are only drinking places for the accommoda- 

 tion of local customers, mainly of the laboring class. 

 Instead of standing conspicuously on some street 

 corner, as with us, they usually stand on some by 



