rse-shed
begins to pour out his patriotism in that unending repetition of
rub-a-dub-dub which is supposed to represent love of country in the
young. When the boy is tired out and quits the field, the faithful
watch-dog opens out upon the stilly night. He is the guardian of his
master's slumbers. The howls of the faithful creature are answered
by barks and yelps from all the farmhouses for a mile around, and
exceedingly poor barking it usually is, until all the serenity of the
night is torn to shreds. This is, however, only the opening of the
orchestra. The cocks wake up if there is the faintest moonshine and
begin an antiphonal service between responsive barn-yards. It is not
the clear clarion of chanticleer that is heard in the morn of English
poetry, but a harsh chorus of cracked voices, hoarse and abortive
attempts, squawks of young experimenters, and some indescribable thing
besides, for I believe even the hens crow in these days. Distracting
as all this is, however, happy is the man who does not hear a goat
lamenting in the night. The goat is the most exasperating of the animal
creation. He cries like a deserted baby, but he does it without any
regularity. One can accustom himself to any expression of suffering that
is regular. The annoyance of the goat is in the dreadful waiting for
the uncertain sound of the next wavering bleat. It is the fearful
expectation of that, mingled with the faint hope that the last was the
last, that aggravates the tossing listener until he has murder in his
heart. He longs for daylight, hoping that the voices of the night will
then cease, and that sleep will come with the blessed morning. But he
has forgotten the birds, who at the first streak of gray in the east
have assembled in the trees near his chamber-window, and keep up for an
hour the most rasping dissonance,--an orchestra in which each artist
is tuning his instrument, setting it in a different key and to play
a different tune: each bird recalls a different tune, and none sings
"Annie Laurie,"--to pervert Bayard Taylor's song.

Give us the quiet of a city on the night before a journey. As we
mounted skyward in our hotel, and went to bed in a serene altitude, we
congratulated ourselves upon a reposeful night. It began well. But as we
sank into the first doze, we were startled by a sudden crash. Was it an
earthquake, or another fire? Were the neighboring buildings all tumbling
in upon us, or had a bomb fallen into the neighboring