234 OLD PLYMOUTH TRAILS 



ment that will record so low a note as that of the 

 drumming of the partridge. I count the vibra- 

 tions of the first of it with ease. They speed up 

 toward the end, but they do not raise the pitch. 

 I know nothing in our human musical notation 

 that will touch its depth. Yet it is a musical 

 tone and a most goblinlike and eerie one. The 

 partridge may be commonplace enough and his 

 drumming but a strut of complacency and self- 

 satisfaction. With patience and good luck I may 

 see him doing it and follow him from his roost 

 in the morning till he returns to it at night. But 

 I cannot fathom the mystery which haunts the 

 pasture in the genial melancholy of these sunny 

 October days, to which his drum seems to sound 

 the marching note. 



In the midday stillness when the blue sky 

 arches over the place like a crystal bell which 

 no winds may penetrate it seems as if the w^itch- 

 ery grew. The warmth of the sun is like that of 

 summer though without languor. The world is 

 in a breathless swoon in the midst of which I 

 wonder dreamily how this soft brown grass on 

 which I lie could have been crisp and white with 

 frost six hours ago. The morning waked all the 

 hardier forest creatures who seemed to revel in 



