The things we do!

Spring
and summer they are still only in bloom, but there are harebells and
ladyslippers, deep, windless woods, and the scent of trees, and stillness.
There is a sound as of distant waters from the heavens; never so
long-drawn a sound in all eternity. And a thrush may be singing as high as
ever its voice can go, and then, just at its highest pitch, the note
breaks suddenly at a right angle; clear and clean as if cut with a
diamond; then softly and sweetly down the scale once more. Along the
shore, too, there is life; guillemot, oyster-catcher, tern are busy there;
the wagtail is out in search of food, advancing in little spurts, trim and
pert with its pointed beak and swift little flick of a tail; after a while
it flies up to perch on a fence and sing with the rest. But when the sun
has set, may come the cry of a loon from some hill-tarn; a melancholy
hurrah. That is the last; now there is only the grasshopper left. And
there's nothing to say of a grasshopper, you never see it; it doesn't
count, only he's there gritting his resiny teeth, as you might say.


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