84. BIRDS AND MAN 



not be described as bell-like nor metallic, but 

 it is loud and clear, with an engaging wildness 

 in it, and, like metallic sounds, far-reaching; 

 and of so good a quality that very little more 

 would make it ring musically. 



Sometimes when I go into this ancient 

 abbey church, or into some cathedral, and 

 seating myself, and looking over a forest of 

 bonnets, see a pale young curate with a black 

 moustache, arrayed in white vestments, standing 

 before the reading-desk, and hear him gabbling 

 some part of the Service in a continuous buzz 

 and rumble that roams hke a gigantic blue- 

 bottle through the vast dim interior, then I, 

 not following him— for I do not know where he 

 is, and cannot find out however much I should 

 like to — am apt to remember the daws out of 

 doors, and to think that it would be well if 

 that young man would but climb up into the 

 highest tower, or on to the roof, and dwell there 

 for the space of a year listening to them ; and 

 that he would fill his mouth with polished 

 pebbles, and medals, and coins and seals and 

 seal-rings, and small porcelain cats and dogs, 

 and little silver pigs, and other objects from the 



