For now the gale subsides, and from each bough
The roosting pheasant's short but frequent crow
Invites to rest, and huddling side by side
The herd in closest ambush seek to hide;
Seek some warm slope with shagged moss o'erspread,
Dried leaves their copious covering and their bed.
In vain may Giles, through gathering glooms that fall,
And solemn silence, urge his piercing call;
Whole days and nights they tarry 'midst their store,
Nor quit the woods till oaks can yield no more.
It is a delightful passage to one that knows a pig--the animal
we respect for its intelligence, holding it in this respect
higher, more human, than the horse, and at the same time laugh
at on account of certain ludicrous points about it, as for
example its liability to lose its head. Thousands of years of
comfortable domestic life have failed to rid it of this
inconvenient heritage from the time when wild in woods it ran.
Yet in this particular instance the terror of the swine does
not seem wholly inexcusable, if we know a wild duck as well as
a pig, especially the duck that takes to haunting a solitary
woodland pool, who, when intruded on, springs up with such a
sudden tremendous splash and flutter of wings and outrageous
screams, that man himself, if not prepared for it, may be
thrown off his balance.
Passing over other scenes, about one hundred and fifty lines,
we come to the second notable passage, when after the sowing
of the winter wheat, poor Giles once more takes up his old
occupation of rook-scaring.
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