There, and with delight to take and render
Through the trance of silence
Quiet breath.”...
And Jane took it up again—
... “Where essential silence cheers and blesses,
And forever in the hill recesses
Her more lovely music broods and dies.”
Just then essential silence was broken by the last protesting squawk of a virtuous hen, who seemed to be about to die that they might live. Peripatetica recognized that plaintive cry. Hens were kept handy in fattening-coops on the Plantation, against the sudden inroads of unexpected guests.
“When the big-gate slams chickens begin to squawk,” was a well-remembered Plantation proverb.
“How tough she will be, though,” Jane gently moaned, “and we shan’t be able to eat her, and she will have died in vain.”