Various Wires
Having been down the hill to see the extent of the floods in the hop- gardens in the valley, I was relieved to find that the little tributary of the Medway (spelled Theis, but pronounced Tees) was doing its duty, collect- ing the surplus water and rushing it away at breakneck speed. Turning my attention from this reluctantly—for what is so hypnotic as a swift stream ?-1 noticed that the wires set permanently some nine or ten feet above ground-level, running from pole to pole over the many acres of the hop-garden, were studded with a flock of chaffinches. They looked like little corks against the light, sitting so still. Then I moved toward them, and suddenly they rose in a body, like a sheet being shaken out. They twittered away, over and under the wires, as though to make an embroidery against the drab rusted warp.
Wire plays a large part in the life of the countryside ; one that did not exist a century ago. Telephones, telegraphs and electric power ; fences too—mile upon mile they spread, and we take them for granted now, almost as an element of nature itself. They contribute to the .1rchestra. In the telephone wires, especially at each post among the glass or porcelain insulators where the tension is tightest, the moving air makes a shrill keening, be the breeze ever so slight. Children think it is the sound of voices passing along the wires. Against this aeolian soprano the response of the power cables comes intermittently, with a
"Hoe! Hoo sh! ", almost a moan.
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