IN A HAMPSHIRE VILLAGE 163 



her marriage up to little over a year ago, when her 

 two children were aged nine and six respectively. 

 For there were two children then, and they lived in 

 a cottage at the side of a pine and oak wood on the 

 border of the heath. Her husband was fond of birds 

 and of all wild animals; he knew them well, and in 

 time she, too, grew to like them just as much. She 

 loved best to hear their songs and calls; bird voices 

 were always to be heard, day and night, all the year 

 round. You couldn't but hear them, even the faintest 

 note of the tiniest bird, it was so silent at that spot 

 where there was no road and no house near. Her 

 solace and one pleasure outside the house was in 

 their singing. She was very much alone there; she 

 read little and never heard any music — one would 

 have to go miles to hear a piano; so the songs of 

 birds came to be the sweetest sounds on earth for 

 her, especially the blackbird, which was more to her 

 than any other bird. When she first came to live in 

 the village she could hardly endure the noises — so 

 many cocks crowing, children shouting, people talking, 

 carts rattling by and all kinds of noises ! It made her 

 head ache at first. Then at night, how they missed 

 the night birds' sounds — the hooting of the wood 

 owls, especially in winter, and in summer the reeling 

 of nightjars, and the corncrake and the nightingale. 

 Thus for half an hour the poor woman talked and 

 talked about her old life on the heath, laughing a 

 little now and then at her own feelings — the absurdity 

 of her home-sickness when she was so near the old 

 spot — but always with a little break in her voice, 



