To Mountain Tarn 



up against the red glow of the burning frost. They, 

 too, had a wild fit, of a slightly soberer character, 

 as became their greater bulk. High up, as though 

 bent on a distant roost, they held on their way. 

 They wheeled and returned ; they mingled in a 

 maze. They came lower down, just over the 

 dimming fields. They rose and dipped, crossed 

 and recrossed, broke and re-formed, and so put 

 more into the last hour of the winter day than 

 all the hours that went before. Suddenly they 

 dropped within the curtain of the fence, to the 

 darkness of the field, and all was still. 



So was a riot of motion as of sound ; a wild 

 whirl as a noisy vesper, only another phase of 

 that wave of excitement, which trembles through 

 nature, at the setting of the sun and the coming 

 on of sleep. 



No four-footed creatures were abroad. A few 

 signs, alone, told of their presence. Little piles 

 of fresh earth, over the pasture field, were cast 

 up by an underground world of moles. In snug 

 corners the hedgehog was asleep. Only the 

 other day a terrier turned two out of the under- 

 growth. There is no naturalist like the terrier, 

 so long as you confine his energies to the finding. 

 He will cause a barren scene to teem. Other 

 forms are asleep. Hibernation is a common 

 phase, lessening the winter numbers and variety. 

 Even the water vole, on the banks of the Eden, 

 keeps within doors. 



253 



