172 BIRDS AND MAN 



our lives ; dead and buried since childhood, they 

 have miraculously been restored to life. When 

 we are back in the candlelight and firelight, and 

 when the morrow dawns, these children of night 

 and the unsubstantial appearance of things 



fade away 

 Into the light of common day. 



The villagers of Saintbury are, however, still 

 in a somewhat primitive mental condition ; the 

 light of common day does not deliver them 

 from the presence of phantoms, as the following 

 instance will show. 



Near Willersey there is a group of very large 

 old elm-trees which is a favourite meeting-place 

 of the owls, and one very dark starless night, 

 about ten o'clock, I had been listening to them, 

 and after they ceased hooting I remained for 

 half an hour standing motionless in the same 

 place. At length, in the direction of Saintbury, 

 I heard the dull sound of heavy stumbling foot- 

 steps coming towards me over the rough, ridgy 

 field. Nearer and nearer the man came, until, 

 arriving at the hedge close to which I stood, he 

 scrambled through, muttering maledictions on 



