BEDTIME. 325 



Let us repair to this shrubbery to-night, and 

 watch the actions of birds at the close of day. 

 The sun, like a ball of dull, red fire, is settling 

 down behind the distant snow-wreathed moors ; 

 fitful snowflakes whirl and eddy in the air as if 

 foretelling another heavy fall ; last night's hoar- 

 frost is still encrusted on the grass ; a cold wind 

 rattles cheerlessly through the elm trees, sweeping 

 across the open fields, penetrating all things with 

 its pitiless, withering breath'; everything presages 

 an unusually cold night. But we shall find it 

 warmer when we get among the sheltering 

 shrubs. Out here scarcely a bird can be seen 

 the hedges are deserted, the fields are lonesome 

 and dreary ; now and then a tired and sleepy 

 Finch flits overhead, twittering to itself as it goes, 

 bending its course to the evergreens ; we startle a 

 few Blackbirds in the ditch by the meadow ; they, 

 too, hurry off with noisy cries to the old familiar 

 roosting-place. But if the fields are deserted, we 

 can hear the varied cries of birds in plenty from 

 the shrubbery ahead ; and as soon as we enter its 

 gloomy portals we are among the birds in down- 

 right earnest at last. 



Bitterly cold in the open though the evening is, 

 the Robin's notes are sounding the day's requiem ; 

 and the glorious song of the Stormcock echoes 

 high above the soughing of the wind. The 

 speckled chorister is yonder, high up the bending 

 elm, no bird that cleaves the air more wary than 

 he. Rocked to and fro in the heightening gale, 



