same
time regulating his speed by the least upward tilt. It was a glorious
motion, without effort or difficulty, though the pace made it hard to
keep the eyes open, and breathing became almost impossible. They dropped
to within ten feet of the ground and then shot forward again.

But, while the boy was watching his companion's movements, and paying
too little attention to his own, there rose suddenly before him out of
the ground a huge, bulky form of something--and crash--he flew headlong
into it.

Fortunately it was only a haystack; but the speed at which he was going
lodged his head several inches under the thatch, whence he projected
horizontally into space, feet, arms, and wings gyrating furiously. The
governess, however, soon released him with much laughter, and they
dropped down into the fallen hay upon the ground with no worse result
than a shaking.

"Oh, what a lark!" he cried, shaking the hay out of his feathers, and
rubbing his head rather ruefully.

"Except that larks are hardly night-birds," she laughed, helping him.

They settled with folded wings in the shadow of the haystack; and the
big moon, peeping over the edge at them, must have surely wondered to
see such a funny couple, in such a place, and at such an hour.

"Mushrooms!" suddenly cried the governess, springing to her feet. "There
must be lots in this field. I'll go and pick some while you rest a bit."

Off she went, trapesing over the field in the moonlight, her wings
folded behind her, her body bent a little forward as she searched, and
in ten minutes she came back with her hands full. That was undoubtedly
the time to enjoy mushrooms at their best, with the dew still on their
tight little jackets, and the sweet odour of the earth caught under
their umbrellas.

Soon they were all eaten, and Jimbo was lying back on a pile of hay, his
shoulders against the wall of the stack, and his wings gathered round
him like a warm cloak of feathers. He felt cosy and dozy, full of
mushrooms inside and covered with hay and feathers outside. The
governess had once told him that a sort of open-air sleep sometimes came
after a long flight. It was, of course, not a real sleep, but a state in
which everything about oneself is forgotten; no dreams, no movement, no
falling asleep and waking up in the ordinary sense, but a condition of
deep repose in which recuperation is very great.

Jimbo would have been greatly interested, no doubt, to know that his
real bo