oud, I have stayed under thick larches at the edge of
plantations. They are no shelter, but conceal one perfectly. The wood
pigeons come home to their nest trees; in larches they seem to have
permanent nests, almost like rooks. Kestrels, too, come home to the
wood. Pheasants crow, but not from fear--from defiance; in fear they
scream. The boom startles them, and they instantly defy the sky. The
rabbits quietly feed on out in the field between the thistles and rushes
that so often grow in woodside pastures, quietly hopping to their
favourite places, utterly heedless how heavy the echoes may be in the
hollows of the wooded hills. Till the rain comes they take no heed
whatever, but then make for shelter. Blackbirds often make a good deal
of noise; but the soft turtle-doves coo gently, let the lightning be as
savage as it will. Nothing has the least fear. Man alone, more
senseless than a pigeon, put a god in vapour; and to this day, though the
printing press has set a foot on every threshold, numbers bow the knee
when they hear the roar the timid dove does not heed. So trustful are
the doves, the squirrels, the birds of the branches, and the creatures of
the field. Under their tuition let us rid ourselves of mental terrors,
and face death itself as calmly as they do the livid lightning; so
trustful and so content with their fate, resting in themselves and
unappalled. If but by reason and will I could reach the godlike calm and
courage of what we so thoughtlessly call the timid turtle-dove, I should
lead a nearly perfect life.

The bark of the ancient apple tree under which I have been standing is
shrunken like iron which has been heated and let cool round the rim of a
wheel. For a hundred years the horses have rubbed against it while
feeding in the aftermath. The scales of the bark are gone or smoothed
down and level, so that insects have no hiding-place. There are no
crevices for them, the horsehairs that were caught anywhere have been
carried away by birds for their nests. The trunk is smooth and columnar,
hard as iron. A hundred times the mowing-grass has grown up around it,
the birds have built their nests, the butterflies fluttered by, and the
acorns dropped from the oaks. It is a long, long time, counted by
artificial hours or by the seasons, but it is longer still in another
way. The greenfinch in the hawthorn yonder has been there since I came
out, and all the time has been happily talking to his