A HUNT FOR THE NIGHTINGALE. 105 



way, or some little paved court away from the main 

 thoroughfare. I could have plenty of beer, said the 

 landlord, but he had not a mouthful of meat in the 

 house. I urged my needs, and finally got some rye 

 bread and cheese. With this and a glass of home- 

 brewed beer I was fairly well fortified. At the ap- 

 pointed time I met the cottager and went with him 

 on his way home. We walked two miles or more 

 along a charming road, full of wooded nooks and 

 arbor-like vistas. Why do English trees always look 

 so sturdy, and exhibit such massive repose, so unlike, 

 in this latter respect, to the nervous and agitated ex- 

 pression of most of our own foliage ? Probably be- 

 cause they have been a long time out of the woods 

 and have had plenty of room in which to develop in- 

 dividual traits and peculiarities ; then in a deep fer- 

 tile soil, and a climate that does not hurry or over- 

 tax, they grow slow and last long, and come to have 

 the picturesqueness of age without its infirmities. 

 The oak, the elm, the beech, all have more striking 

 profiles than in our country. 



Presently my companion pointed out to me a small 

 wood below the road that had a wide fringe of bushes 

 and saplings connecting it with a meadow, amid which 

 stood the tree-embowered house of a city man, where 

 he had heard the nightingale in the morning; and 

 then, further along, showed me, near his own cottage, 

 where he had heard one the evening before. It was 

 now only six o'clock, and I had two or three hours 

 to wait before I could reasonably expect to hear her. 



