And sure enough,
a rickyard it proved to be, and a neat little farm-steading, with
the beech-woods growing almost to the door of it. Just before me,
however, as I came upon the path, the trees drew back and let in a
wide flood of daylight on to a circular lawn. It was here that the
noises had their origin. More than a score of peacocks (there are
altogether thirty at the farm), a proper contingent of peahens, and
a great multitude that I could not number of more ordinary barn-
door fowls, were all feeding together on this little open lawn
among the beeches. They fed in a dense crowd, which swayed to and
fro, and came hither and thither as by a sort of tide, and of which
the surface was agitated like the surface of a sea as each bird
guzzled his head along the ground after the scattered corn. The
clucking, cooing noise that had led me thither was formed by the
blending together of countless expressions of individual
contentment into one collective expression of contentment, or
general grace during meat. Every now and again a big peacock would
separate himself from the mob and take a stately turn or two about
the lawn, or perhaps mount for a moment upon the rail, and there
shrilly publish to the world his satisfaction with himself and what
he had to eat. It happened, for my sins, that none of these
admirable birds had anything beyond the merest rudiment of a tail.
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