It was the month of June. A thousand tones of green were mingling, marrying, all around us, from the pale green of the parasite mistletoe to the almost black of the ivy which climbed the oak trunks. Spring was singing its whole gamut around us. And under the trees there still remained heaps of red leaves, vestiges of the former season.
I felt a vague fear at being thus alone, we two, amidst so imposing and silent an assembly, and I tried to talk, in order to make our presence there seem more real.
“Hush!” said grandfather; “be still and listen.”
Listen to what? And yet, little by little, I began to perceive a multitude of soft sounds. We were no longer alone, as I had thought; innumerable living things were all around us.
Far away two chaffinches were calling to one another at regular intervals. The more distant one took up softly the couplet which the other was pouring forth from a full throat. From tree to tree the latter drew nearer. I saw him, my eye met his—so little and round! As I did not stir, he remained. But what could be those dull, reiterated blows? Woodpeckers, tapping the trunks with their bills.
Long bands of light glided here and there between the branches and lay upon the ground; in their rays, which brought out the shapes of the leaves, spiders’ webs were swinging, their finest threads plain to see, and wasps, buzzing as they flew about. At last I could even hear the rustling of the grass;—the secret labour of the earth under the influence of heat. I was discovering a life of which I had never dreamed.
“What is that call, grandfather?” I asked in a low tone.
“It must be a hare; let’s hide, and perhaps, if you are very quiet, we shall see it before long.”
Upon this dialogue we softly dragged ourselves behind a bush. I knew hares only from having eaten of them on rare occasions of ceremony, though Aunt Deen deplored giving rabbit to children, because of the soiling of napkins and faces. The cry sounded again—nearer us this time.
“He is calling his doe,” whispered grandfather.