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Starlings' singing Native and borrowed sounds Imitations of sheep-bells The shepherd on sheep-bells The bells for pleasure, not use A dog in charge of the flock Shepherd calling his sheep Richard Warner of Bath Ploughmen singing to their oxen in Cornwall A shepherd's loud singing

Friend, many a day have I been dying; for my sister, with whom I have played and been merry in the autumn tide about the edges of the stubble-fields; and we gathered the nuts and bramble-berries there, and started thence the missel-thrush, and wondered at his voice and thought him big; and the sparrow-hawk wheeled and turned over the hedges and the weasel ran across the path, and the sound of the sheep-bells came to us from the downs as we sat happy on the grass; and she is dead and gone from the earth, for she pined from famine after the years of the great sickness; and my brother was slain in the French wars, and none thanked him for dying save he that stripped him of his gear; and my unwedded wife with whom I dwelt in love after I had taken the tonsure, and all men said she was good and fair, and true she was and lovely; she also is dead and gone from the earth; and why should I abide save for the deeds of the flesh which must be done?

They were shepherd dogs, who had never heard anything but the sob of the sheep-bells, the bleating of the flocks and the lash-like crack of the lightning on the summits, and, proud and happy, they waited while the little spaniel bore witness. She took a step forward. But not a sound came from her throat. She licked the hand of Francis, and then lay down at his feet. And the ewe bleated.

And the old barrows that lie scattered over these wide-stretching downs are not dumb; they are continually speaking to us of those things "which ear hath not heard"; and at no time have they more to tell than at the close of a mild, peaceful day in October, when all else, save for the faint tinkling of the distant sheep-bells, is silent as death, and the sun, ere once more disappearing, is shedding a solemn glow over the deserted, mysterious uplands of the Cotswold Hills.

They saw the English summer, saw the twilight fall, heard the lonely tinkle of far sheep-bells, heard the nightingales singing beneath the moon that shone on England. Friends' homes opened to them; Grenville welcomed them to Stowe, Sidney to charmed Penshurst. Then to London and the Triple Tun! Bow Bells rang for them; they drank in the inn's long-room; their names were in men's mouths.

He pipes not like the shepherd of fable or of the pastoral poets, nor plays upon any musical instrument, and seldom sings, or even whistles that sorry substitute for song; he loves music nevertheless, and gets it in his sheep-bells; and he likes it in quantity. "How many bells have you got on your sheep it sounds as if you had a great many?"

Then there came a wide stretch of pasture, and the town of Fontainebleau was left behind. The sun came out and came out and came out; birds chirruped in the hedgerows and the daws in the high poplars called and scolded. The mist still lingered on the distant hills, and we could hear the tinkle of sheep-bells and the barking of a dog coming out of the nothingness.

The change of antennas and transmitting frequencies is made during the ten-minute interval between programmes, which always begin on the hour, preceded by the now familiar signature tune of a shepherd playing his flute with the tinkling of sheep-bells in the background, recorded in 1936, followed by the Greek National Anthem.

The hours pass, the shadows lengthen, the sheep-bells clang; and I lie in my niche under the stunted hawthorn watching the to and fro of the sea, and AEolus shepherding his white sheep across the blue. I love the sea with its impenetrable fathoms, its wash and undertow, and rasp of shingle sucked anew.

Within this cloud one may hear the sheep-bells ringing, and see the sunlight darting hither and thither. Strange and fanciful sight! The Hanoverian pianist has gone; the family from Colmar has gone; a young girl and her brother have arrived.