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Updated: June 4, 2025
Still, the blaze failed to banish entirely the thrill of fear which pervaded the spot at night; for the unwonted glare dazzled and bewildered the bats and night-birds, and they fluttered about over the heads of the intruders in dark, ghostly flight. Many a one believed them to be the unresting souls of condemned sinners, and looked up at them with awe.
"No doubt about there being plenty of room, lads," said my uncle, as he laughed at our scared faces, for the sudden rush out was startling. "Is them owls, sir?" said the carpenter, staring. "No, no," replied my uncle; "they are something of the goat-sucker tribe night-birds which build in caves; but a good half of what we see are bats."
"Oh, what a lark!" he cried, shaking the hay out of his feathers, and rubbing his head rather ruefully. "Except that larks are hardly night-birds," she laughed, helping him. They settled with folded wings in the shadow of the haystack; and the big moon, peeping over the edge at them, must have surely wondered to see such a funny couple, in such a place, and at such an hour.
I could hear every now and then the mutterings and occasional roars of lions, with the cries of hyaenas and jackals, and the calls of various night-birds. Altogether the concert had a somewhat depressing effect, accustomed though I was by this time to the noises proceeding from an African forest.
Evening after evening, by twos and threes, they sit in the moonlight under the silver-touched vines and dewy blossoms of the porch, listening to the far-away cry of night-birds, the murmur of drowsy bells upon cattle stirring in sleep, or of human voices idealized by remoteness into faint haunting music, while before them white light touches the wooded heights of Cliefden, distant heights full of picturesque mystery and passionate history, touches and idealizes into a semblance of poetic realism the sham ruins of Hedsor, and spreads a pearly sheen over the unseen Valley of the Shadow of Light through which winds the quiet Thames.
The approach to it was sinister after one had left Poperinghe and passed through the skeleton of Vlamertinghe church, beyond Goldfish Chateau... For a long time Poperinghe was the last link with a life in which men and women could move freely without hiding from the pursuit of death; and even there, from time to time, there were shells from long-range guns and, later, night-birds dropping high-explosive eggs.
It has seemed the happiest destiny for me, but only for the very fortunate and elect.... I wonder if they ever know of the night-birds that flutter at the window-panes to see the happiness within?"
An awful silence suddenly fell upon nature, the myriad insect voices became mute, the night-birds ceased to utter their melancholy cries, the sighing of the wind through the trees of the distant wood was no longer heard; a hush of dread expectancy ensued.
As he now listened to the melancholy rising of the wind and the increasing loudness of the thunder, to the shrill cries of the distant night-birds hurrying to shelter, emotions of mournfulness and awe possessed themselves of his heart.
"I will let you go on one condition." "What is it?" "That you will tell my story to this charming bat, charging her to tell it to all the night-birds of her acquaintance." "I fear," said D'Harmental, "I shall not have time." "Oh! so much the better for you," replied the duke, freeing the chevalier, whom till then he had held by the coat; "for then you must have something better to say."
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