Читать книгу Neighbourhood: A year's life in and about an English village онлайн

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The trees stretched across the entire field, and every twig on every branch had its perching songster, the combined effect being as though the trees had suddenly shot out a magic foliage, coal-black against the deepening blue of the sky, heavy and thick as leaves in June. Now the mountain brooks had swollen to Niagaras. The hubbub was literally deafening. I shouted my loudest, hoping to set the gargantuan host to flight, but I could scarce hear my own voice. For a full ten minutes I stood in that great flood-tide of melody, and all the time fresh detachments of birds were continually arriving to swell the multitude, and add their voices to the chorus. At length I saw two birds break away from the mass, and fly straight off side by side. Immediately the tumult ceased, and there followed a sound like the long, rumbling roll of thunder. The whole concourse had taken wing together, the tree-tops, released from their weight, lashing back as though struck by a flaw of wind. Now the army swept over my head, darkening the sky as it went. The thunderous sound grew less and less as the flock made for the distant woods. A moment more, and an uncanny silence had fallen on everything. Then, half a mile away in the misty dark, I heard the rich, wild voice peal out again, where the starling host had taken up their quarters for the night.