2 RUSTIC SOUNDS 



Another familiar sound was the wicked groaning 

 crack that ran round the soHtary pond on which we 

 skated, as it unwilHngly settled down to bear us 

 on its surface. It had a threat in it, and reminded 

 us how helpless we were, that the pond-spirit was 

 our master and had our lives in its grip. 



Another winter note was the hooting of invisible 

 owls, boldly calling to each other from one moonlit 

 tree to another. In the spring there was the 

 querulous sound of the lambs, staggering half 

 fledged in the cold fields among the half-eaten 

 turnips beside their dirty yellow mothers. Not the 

 sheep of the Dresden shepherdess, but rather of 

 the old man in As You Like It, who warns Rosalind 

 that shepherding has its ugly side. Yet it had 

 something prophetic of more genial days. 



As the sap began to rise in the 

 trees my thoughts lightly turned to 

 the making of whistles. I was 

 taught the mystery by a labourer 

 in my father's employ and never 

 departed from his method. The 

 first thing was to cut a branch of 

 some likely tree, a horse-chestnut 

 ^ for choice, severing it by an ob- 

 lique cut, removing a ring of 

 bark R and notching it at N. 

 The bark had then to be re- 

 moved in one piece so as to make 

 the tube of the whistle. The first 

 ^'^ ^ thing was to suck the bark and 



thoroughly wet it — a process I now believe to have 

 been entirely useless . The bark was next hammered 



tM 



