are happy. Maybe, fortune has been kind to them, or maybe she has not,
but in either event they are, I am inclined to think, happier than are
most people.

Now and again, the daily tornado would rage with such fury as to defeat
its own purpose by prematurely exhausting itself. On these rare
occasions we would sit out on the deck, and enjoy the unwonted luxury of
fresh air.

I remember well those few pleasant evenings: the river, luminous with the
drowned light, the dark banks where the night lurked, the storm-tossed
sky, jewelled here and there with stars.

It was delightful not to hear for an hour or so the sullen thrashing of
the rain; but to listen to the leaping of the fishes, the soft swirl
raised by some water-rat, swimming stealthily among the rushes, the
restless twitterings of the few still wakeful birds.

An old corncrake lived near to us, and the way he used to disturb all the
other birds, and keep them from going to sleep, was shameful. Amenda,
who was town-bred, mistook him at first for one of those cheap alarm
clocks, and wondered who was winding him up, and why they went on doing
it all night; and, above all, why they didn't oil him.

He would begin his unhallowed performance about dusk, just as every
respectable bird was preparing to settle down for the night. A family of
thrushes had their nest a few yards from his stand, and they used to get
perfectly furious with him.

"There's that fool at it again," the female thrush would say; "why can't