THE STRANGE AND BEAUTIFUL SHELDRAKE 181 



looks like the wall of a gigantic ruined castle, 

 rougji and black, draped with ancient ivy and 

 crowned with furze and bramble and thorn. 

 Here, coming out of the cold wind to the 

 shelter of this giant ivy -draped black wall, I 

 stood still to enjoy the sensations of warmth 

 and a motionless air, when high above appeared 

 a swift-moving little cloud of linnets, seemingly 

 blown across the sky by the gale ; but quite 

 suddenly, when directly over me, the birds all 

 came straight down, to drop like a shower of 

 small stones into the great masses of ivy and 

 furze and bramble. And no sooner had they 

 settled, vanishing into that warm and windless 

 greenery, than they simultaneously burst into 

 such a concert of sweetest wild linnet music, that 

 I was enchanted, and thought that never in all 

 the years I had spent in the haunts of wild birds 

 had I heard anything so fairy-hke and beautiful. 

 On this hUl, or down, at the highest point, 

 you have the Severn Sea before you, and, 

 beyond, the blue mountains of Glamorganshire, 

 and, on the shore, the town of Cardiff made 

 beautiful by distance, vaguely seen in the blue 

 haze and shimmering sunlight like a dream city. 



