When London nights are intolerable, people think with longing of the
cool, fragrant country, of the jasmine-muffled lattices, and the groups
beneath the dreaming evening star. One dreams of coffee after dinner in
the open air, as described in "In Memoriam;" one longs for the cool, the
hush, the quiet. But try the country on a July night. First you have
trouble with all the great, big, hairy, leathery moths and bats which fly
in at the jasmine-muffled lattice, and endeavour to put out your candle.
You blow the candle out, and then a bluebottle fly in good voice comes
out too, and is accompanied by very fair imitations of mosquitoes.
Probably they are only gnats, but in blowing their terrible little
trumpets they are of the mosquito kind. Next the fact dawns on you that
the church clock in the neighbouring spire strikes the quarters, and you
know that you cannot fall asleep before the chime wakes you up again,
with its warning, "Another quarter gone." The cocks come forth and crow
about four; the hens proclaim to a drowsy world that they have fulfilled
the duties of maternity. All through the ambrosial night three cows, in
the meadow under your windows, have been lamenting the loss of their
calves. Of all terrible notes, the "routing" of a bereaved, or amorous,
or homesick cow is the most disturbing. It carries for miles, and keeps
all who hear it--all town-bred folk, at least--far from the land of Nod.
At dawn the song-birds begin, and hold you awake, as they disturbed
Rufinus long ago; but the odds are that they do not inspire you, like
Rufinus, with the desire to write poetry. The short and simple language
of profanity is more likely to come unbidden to the wakeful lips. Thus,
as John Leech found out, the country in July is almost as dreadful at
night as the town. Nay, thanks to the cow, we think the country may bear
away the prize for all that is uncomfortable, all that is hostile to
sleep and the Muses. Yet rustics always sleep very well, and no more
mind the noise of cocks, sparrows, cows, dogs, and ducks than the owner