A WOOD WREN AT WELLS 113 



here because I've been told so, but all the same 

 I've often remarked that the blackbird has two 

 different songs. Now I know, but I'm so sorry 

 that I didn't know a few days sooner." I asked 

 her why. She replied, " The other day a young 

 American lady came to the castle and I took her 

 over the grounds. The birds were singing the 

 same as to-day, and the young lady said, ' Now, 

 I want you to tell me which is the blackcap's song. 

 Just think,' she said, ' what a distance I have come, 

 from America ! Well, when I was bidding good- 

 bye to my friends at home I said, " Don't you 

 envy me ? I'm going to Old England to hear 

 the blackcap's song." ' Well, when I told her we 

 had no blackcaps she was so disappointed ; and 

 yet, sir, if what you say is right, the bird was 

 singing near us all the time ! " 



Poor young lady from America ! I should have 

 liked to know whose written words first fired her 

 brain with desire of the blackcap's song — a golden 

 voice in imagination's ear, while the finest home 

 voices were merely silvern. I think of my own 

 case ; how in boyhood this same bird first warbled 

 to me in some lines of a poem I read ; and how, 

 long years afterwards, I first heard the real song — 

 beautiful, but how unlike the song I had imagined ! 



H 



