Page:The clerk of the woods.djvu/266

248 voice, was it not? Yes; faint, tremulous, sweet, a mere breath, the falling, quavering strain again reaches my ear. The bird is somewhere beyond the brook. I wonder how far. Well up on the wooded hillside, I think it likely. I put my hands behind my ears and hearken. Again and again I hear it; true music! music and poetry in one; the voice of the night. But look! What is that dark object just before me on a low branch not two rods away? There is no light with which to be sure of its outlines; a tuft of dead leaves, perhaps; but it is of a screech owl's size. Another phrase. Yes, it comes from that spot, or I am tricked. And now the bird moves, and the next instant takes wing. But he goes only a few feet, and alights even nearer to me than before. How soft his voice is! Almost as soft as his flight. How different from the woodcock's panting, breathless whistle! Though I can see him, and could almost touch him, the tremulous measure might still be coming from the depths of the wood. I listen with all my ears, till an approaching carriage turns a corner in the road below.