ioo THE LAND'S END 



mind is made up and who does everything straight 

 off. Nevertheless he gave me almost as much 

 pleasure, only it was a somewhat different feeling 

 a pleasure of a pensive kind with something of mys- 

 tery in it. He did not sing, even on those bright 

 days or hours in January, which caused such silent 

 ones as the corn bunting and pied wagtail to break 

 out in melody. The bell-like tinkling strain he 

 utters when soaring up and dropping to earth is for 

 summer only : it is that faint fairy-like aerial music 

 which you hear on wide moors and commons and lonely 

 hillsides. In winter he has no language but that one 

 sharp sorrowful little call, or complaint, the most 

 anxious sound uttered by any small bird in these 

 islands. It is a sound that suits the place, and when 

 the wind blows hard, bringing the noise of the waves 

 to your ears, and the salt spray ; when all the sky is 

 one grey cloud, and sea mists sweep over the earth at 

 intervals blurring the outline of the hills, that thin 

 but penetrative little sad call seems more appropriate 

 than ever and in tune with Nature and the mind. 

 The movements, too, of the unhappy little creature 

 have a share in the impression he makes ; he flings 

 himself up, as it were, before your footsteps out of the 

 brown heath, pale tall grasses and old dead bracken, 

 and goes off as if blown away by the wind, then 

 returns to you as if blown back, and hovers and goes 

 to this side, then to that, now close to you, a little 

 sombre bird, and anon in appearance a mere dead leaf 

 or feather whirled away before the blast. During the 

 uncertain flight, and when, at intervals, he drops upon 



