the most reckless manner, urging his two huge horses to a fast trot,
then a gallop, up and down hill along those rough gully-like roads, he
standing up in his cart and roaring out "Auld Lang Syne," at the top of
a voice of tremendous power. He was probably tipsy, but it was not a bad
voice, and the old familiar tune and words had an extraordinary effect
in that still atmosphere. He passed my cottage, standing up, his legs
wide apart, his cap on the back of his head, a big broad-chested young
man, lashing his horses, and then for about two minutes or longer the
thunder of the cart and the roaring song came back fainter, until it
faded away in the distance. At that still hour of the day the children
were all at school on the further side of the village; the men away in
the fields; the women shut up in their cottages, perhaps sleeping. It
seemed to me that I was the only person in the village who had witnessed
and heard the passing of the big-voiced man and cart. But it was not so.
At all events, next day, the whole village, men, women and children,
were singing, humming and whistling "Auld Lang Syne," and "Auld Lang
Syne" lasted for several days, and from that day "Ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay"
was heard no more. It had lost its charm.




VIII


Just out of hearing of the grasshopper warblers, there was a good-sized
pool of water on the common, probably an old gravel-pit, its bottom now
overgrown with rushes. A sedge warbler, the only one on the common,
lived in the masses of bramble and gorse on its banks; and birds of so
many kinds came to it to drink and bathe that the pool became a