If there be nothing but this mechanical world, and if the pure materialist even in spite of his materialism should invent for himself or imagine a god, it would be such a one as I beheld on that windy night.
So passed the miserable darkling hours, "as I lay a-thynkinge," and saw no hope until I slept, and when I woke and the grey morning was come, the wind had fallen and the cold was not so intense.
The frost continued that day and the next, and although very cold with occasional storms of sleet and snow, it was getting milder all the time. The change was so gradual one could hardly feel it, but it had a great effect on the birds; they were recovering very rapidly, and on the morning of the 27th, when the ground had once more grown soft except in shady places, my birds did not turn up at feeding-time in the morning: they were back in the fields getting their natural food, which no doubt tasted best after their long abstinence. It was a pleasure to go out again to see the thrush standing up stiff and alert on the green turf in the old way, and the speckled starlings scattered about and once more busily prodding the turf. The daws rose up with the old insolent ring in their clamouring voices, and the wren was himself again, briskly hopping out of his hiding-place in the stones for a moment or two just to fling that sharp little note of indignation at you for disturbing him--"Go away--mind your own business!"
The mortality had undoubtedly been very great, but a majority of the birds died in the night-time, dropping from their perches in the close bushes and dying in holes in the hedges, where their bodies remained hidden. But they had died in the daytime too, and I found their remains all about the fields, mostly starlings, but dead redwings and thrushes were also plentiful.
_The towans or sandhills--Their destructive progress over the land--Sea rush introduced--The ferry at Lelant--Among the towans--The meadow-pipit--The ferryman--Knowledge of wild life in country boys and men--Countryman and chaffinch--The native naturalist--A strange story of a badger--Great black-backed gull and young guillemot--Sparrow-hawk and curlew--Fight between a seal and a conger--Story of a young seal--An osprey--A great northern diver--The killing passion in sportsmen--Story of a meadow-pipit--The seal colony threatened._