The moonbeams now glisten on the double-barrel; and a bright sparkle
glitters here and there as a dewdrop catches a ray.
Upon the grass a faint halo appears; it is a narrow band of light
encircling the path, an oval ring--perhaps rather horseshoe shape than
oval. It glides in front, keeping ever at the same distance as you walk,
as if there the eye was focussed. This is only seen when the grass is
wet with dew, and better in short grass than long. Where it shines the
grass looks a paler green. Passing gently along a hedge thickly timbered
with oak and elms, a hawk may perhaps start forth: hawks sometimes
linger by the hedges till late, but it is not often that you can shoot
one at roost except in spring. Then they invariably return to roost in
the nest tree, and are watched there, and so shot, a gunner approaching
on each side of the hedge. In the lane dark objects--rabbits--hasten
away, and presently the footpath crosses the still motionless brook near
where it flows into the mere.
The low brick parapet of the bridge is overgrown with mosses; great
hedges grow each side, and the willows, long uncut, almost meet in the
centre. In one hedge an opening leads to a drinking-place for cattle:
peering noiselessly over the parapet between the boughs, the coots and
moorhens may be seen there feeding by the shore. They have come up from
the mere as the ducks and teal do in the winter.
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