220 BIRD LIFE IN ENGLAND. 



stillness as we sped along but the thin tinkle of silver bells 

 on the leader's harness (for we drove tandem), he sniffing 

 the fresh, cold air, and tossing about his head in wonder 

 at the unusual pathway. Our runners passed over the dry 

 surface of frozen snow with perhaps the faintest of murmurs, 

 such as the ripples of a tideway make against the sides of 

 a motionless vessel, but all else was hushed. At times we 

 were floating down narrow gulleys between overhanging 

 rocks where a streamlet, too lively to freeze, ran by the road- 

 side, its course overreached with white crystals, and mean- 

 dering through caverns and wonderful palaces of icicles and 

 frosted herbage. All around nature was shrouded in white, 

 on which the brilliant moon shone, and some of the bigger 

 stars twinkled with unusual lustre in the deep blue vault of 

 the sky. Again we would approach the outskirts of a vast 

 pine forest, and, plunging in, leave the light behind, taking our 

 way along with a strange association of speed and silence 

 until we could almost fancy we were disembodied and going 

 to some Walpurgis revels ! " Do you think there are any 

 wolves left in England now ? " inquires my companion in 

 a hushed voice, glancing round at the sombre aisles of the 

 dimly seen woods, where disjointed fragments of old moun- 

 tains take strange forms as rays of moonlight steal down 

 here and there to light them. 



I assure her there is nothing more wolfy in the neighbour- 

 hood than the skins of a couple of those animals forming the 

 rug that wraps us both, but she is very silent until we pass 

 into the moonlight again. Then comes the run home along 

 the other side of the valley, the lights of the hall twinkling 

 out in the darkness ; the arrival and confiding of the steam- 

 ing horses to the ready stable-boys, and we peel off our furs 

 and wraps to follow the genial old laird into the dining-room, 

 where he forthwith concocts with due solemnity a brew 

 of hot punch in an ancient wassail-bowl, of which we all 

 taste, and so for the fragrant " half-pipe," and to well-earned 

 rest. 



