weather.  About sunset the garrison gives notice of their return; their faint cawing will be heard from a great distance, and they will be seen far off like a sable cloud, and then nearer and nearer, until they all come soaring home.  Then they perform several grand circuits in the air, over the Hall and garden, wheeling closer and closer, until they gradually settle down upon the grove, when a prodigious cawing takes place, as though they were relating their day’s adventures.

I like at such times to walk about these dusky groves, and hear the various sounds of these airy people roosted so high above me.  As the gloom increases, their conversation subsides, and they seem to be gradually dropping asleep; but every now and then there is a querulous note, as if some one was quarrelling for a pillow, or a little more of the blanket.  It is late in the evening before they completely sink to repose, and then their old anchorite neighbour, the owl, begins his lonely hootings from his bachelor’s hall in the wood.

[Illustration:  Bachelor’s Hall]

[Illustration:  MAY-DAY.]

MAY-DAY.

    It is the choice time of the year,
    For the violets now appear;
    Now the rose receives its birth,
    And pretty primrose decks the earth. 
        Then to the May-pole come away,
        For it is now a holiday.

    ACTAEON AND DIANA.

As I was lying in bed this morning, enjoying one of those half-dreams, half-reveries, which are so pleasant in the country, when the birds are singing about the window, and the sunbeams peeping through the curtains, I was roused by the sound of music.  On going down-stairs, I found a number of villagers dressed in their holiday clothes, bearing a pole ornamented with garlands and ribands, and accompanied by the village band of music, under the direction of the tailor, the pale fellow who plays on the clarionet.  They had all sprigs of hawthorn, or, as it is called, “the May,” in their hats, and had brought green branches and flowers to decorate the Hall door and windows.  They had come to give notice that the May-pole was reared on the green, and to invite the household to witness the sports.  The Hall, according to custom, became a scene of hurry and delightful confusion.  The servants were all agog with May and music; and there was no keeping either the tongues or the feet of the maids quiet, who were anticipating the sports of the green, and the evening dance.

I repaired to the village at an early hour to enjoy the merry-making.  The morning was pure and sunny, such as a May morning is always described.  The fields were white with daisies, the hawthorn was covered with its fragrant blossoms, the bee hummed about every bank, and the swallow played high in the air about the village steeple.  It was one of those genial days when we seem to draw in pleasure with the very air we breathe, and to feel happy we know not why.  Whoever has felt the worth of worthy man, or has doted on lovely woman, will, on such a day, call them tenderly to mind, and feel his heart all alive with long-buried recollections.  “For thenne,” says the excellent romance of King Arthur, “lovers call ageyne to their mynde old gentilnes and old servyse, and many kind dedes that were forgotten by neglygence.”