A HUNT FOR THE NIGHTINGALE. 107 



It had the quality that startles ; it pierced the gath- 

 ering gloom like a rocket. Then it ceased. Sus- 

 pecting I was too near the singer, I moved away 

 cautiously, and stood in a lane beside the wood, 

 where a loping hare regarded me a few paces away. 

 Then my singer struck up again, but I could see did 

 not let herself out; just tuning her instrument, I 

 thought, and getting ready to transfix the silence and 

 the darkness. A little later, a man and boy came 

 up the lane. I asked them if that was the nightingale 

 singing ; they listened, and assured me it was none 

 other. " Now she 's on, sir ; now she 's on. Ah ! but 

 she don't stick. In May, sir, they makes the woods 

 all heccho about here. Now she 's on again ; that 's 

 her, sir ; now she 's off ; she won't stick." And stick 

 she would not. I could hear a hoarse wheezing and 

 clucking sound beneath her notes, when I listened 

 intently. The man and boy moved away. I stood 

 mutely invoking all the gentle divinities to spur the 

 bird on. Just then a bird like our hermit-thrush 

 came quickly over the hedge a few yards below me, 

 swept close past my face, and back into the thicket. 

 I had been caught listening ; the offended bird had 

 found me taking notes of her dry and worn-out pipe 

 there behind the hedge, and the concert abruptly 

 ended ; not another note ; not a whisper. I waited a 

 long time and then moved off ; then came back, im- 

 plored the outraged bird to resume ; then rushed off, 

 and slammed the door, or rather the gate, indignantly 

 behind me. I paused by other shrines, but not a 



