MAGPIE FIELDS. 183 



When a few minutes on the rail has carried you 

 outside the hub as it were of London, among the quiet 

 tree-skirted villas, the night reigns as completely as in 

 the solitudes of the country. Perhaps even more so, 

 for the solitude is somehow more apparent. The last 

 theatre-goer has disappeared inside his hall door, the 

 last dull roll of the brougham, with its happy laughing 

 load, has died away — there is not so much as a single 

 footfall. The cropped holly hedges, the leafless 

 birches, the limes and acacias are still and distinct in 

 the moonlight. A few steps further out on the high- 

 way the copse or plantation sleeps in utter silence. 



But the tall elms are the most striking ; the length 

 of the branches and their height above brings them 

 across the light, so that they stand out even more 

 shapely than when in leaf. The blue sky (not, of 

 course, the blue of day), the white moonlight, the 

 bright stars — larger at midnight and brilliant, in 

 despite of the moon, which cannot overpower them in 

 winter as she does in summer evenings — all are as 

 beautiful as on the distant hills of old. By night, at 

 least, even here, in the still silence, Heaven has her 

 own way. 



When the oak leaves first begin to turn buff, and 

 the first acorns drop, the redwings arrive, and their 

 "kuk-kuk " sounds in the hedges and the shrubberies 

 in the gardens of suburban villas. They seem to 

 come very early to the neighbourhood of London, and 

 before the time of their appearance in other districts. 

 The note is heard before they are seen ; the foliage of 

 the shrubberies, still thick, though changing colour, 

 concealing them. Presently, when the trees are bare. 



