Timeless Night 119 



leaf flutters downward from the hawthorn ; though 

 its young berries have scarcely begun to swell, and 

 months must pass before they wax red in Novem- 

 ber, unhasting nature is already preparing to strip 

 the tree. The busy feet of mice rustle among the 

 withering bluebell stems ; and the silence only 

 serves to make their quick gnawing audible, as 

 they fret the fallen seeds. To man the night 

 breathes of rest, even when he keeps vigil among its 

 shadows. But the earth does not sleep ; and in 

 the shadow of the trees a new fungus parts the grass- 

 blades before the dawn. 



Flowers and their attendant insects are most 

 active in the evening twilight, and birds in the dawn. 

 As dusk falls, many of the most fragrant blossoms 

 pour forth their strongest scent ; and the woods 

 -and stream- sides are drenched with sweetness until 

 the air grows chill for daybreak. The sharp scent 

 of mint blows coolly from the edges of the stream, 

 mingling with the heavy perfume of the meadow- 

 sweet. The lanes are full of the coarser fragrance 

 of the elder-blossom, blended with the sweet breath 

 of dewy hay. Honeysuckle sheds its peculiar 

 sweetness from the copses where it twines round 

 the hazel-stems, and from the hedgerows hot in the 

 day's sun ; its tide of scent grows fuller as July 

 advances, and elder-blossom declines. Sweetest 

 and most abundant of all the night-blown perfumes 

 is that of the butterfly orchis, lurking in the shadow 

 of some beechwood or tangled brake. Its scent, 

 poured forth after dark, is astonishingly power- 

 ful for a plant which grows singly or in small 



