IN A GREEN COUNTRY 153 



a larger girl, out of school, who was not half so 

 intelligent as the other and not so well liked by 

 the cottage women. 



I noticed that this man, like many other blind 

 persons I have met, though big and strong and in 

 the prime of life, was a very quiet still man who 

 spoke in a low voice and was subdued and gentle in 

 manner. I think it is the habit of always listening 

 that makes them so quiet, and I wondered what his 

 sensations were when a motor cyclist passed us, going 

 by like a whirlwind, a horrible object, shaking the 

 earth, and making it hateful until he was a mile 

 away with a torrent of noise. 



In my quieter way on my wheel I rambled on from 

 county to county viewing many towns and villages, 

 conversing with persons of all ages and conditions; 

 yet all this left but slight and quickly fading im- 

 pressions, for in my flittings about a green land when 

 it was greenest I had an object ever present in my 

 mind — the desire to see and hear certain rare singing 

 birds, found chiefly in the south, whose rarity is in 

 most cases due to the collectors for the cabinet, bird- 

 catchers, and other Philistines, who occupy them- 

 selves in the destruction of all loveliest forms of life. 

 Thus, the clear whistle of a golden oriole, when I 

 listened to it in a strictly guarded wood, where it 

 breeds annually and where I was permitted to spend 

 a day, was more to me than the sight of towns, 

 villages, castles, ruins, and cathedrals, and more 

 than adventures among the people. 



This, then, is but a hasty and careless itinerary. 



