impartial. To her, who took no sides, there was every bit as
much to be said for the hawk as for the chaffinch. Both were her
children, and she would show no preferences.

Further on, a hedgehog lay dead athwart the path--nay, more than
dead; decadent, distinctly; a sorry sight for one that had known
the fellow in more bustling circumstances. Nature might at least
have paused to shed one tear over this rough jacketed little son
of hers, for his wasted aims, his cancelled ambitions, his whole
career of usefulness cut suddenly short. But not a bit of
it! Jubilant as ever, her song went bubbling on, and "Death-in-
Life," and again, "Life-in-Death," were its alternate burdens.
And looking round, and seeing the sheep-nibbled heels of turnips
that dotted the ground, their hearts eaten out of them in frost-
bound days now over and done, I seemed to discern, faintly, a
something of the stern meaning in her valorous chant.

My invisible companion was singing also, and seemed at times to
be chuckling softly to himself, doubtless at thought of the
strange new lessons he was teaching me; perhaps, too, at a
special bit of waggishness he had still in store. For when at
last he grew weary of such insignificant earthbound company, he
deserted me at a certain spot I knew; then dropped, subsided, and
slunk away into nothingness. I raised my eyes, and before me,
grim and lichened, stood the ancient whipping-post of the
village; its sides fretted with the initials of a generation that
scorned its mute lesson, but still clipped by the stout rusty
shackles that had tethered the wrists of such of that
generation's ancestors as had dared to mock at order and law.
Had I been an infant Sterne, here was a grand chance for