i64 ADVENTURES AMONG BIRDS 



to an account of where I had been, to which old ditch, 

 or barrow, or holly clump, also what birds I had found 

 there, and to the most trivial incidents, as if to some 

 wonderful tale of adventure ; she would listen in silence 

 until I ended, when she would ask a dozen questions 

 to take me all over the ground again and keep up the 

 talk about the heath. On this occasion she said more, 

 telling me that the heath had been very much to her; 

 then little by little she let out the whole story concerning 

 her feeling for it. It was the story of her life from 

 the time of her marriage up to a little over a year ago, 

 when her two children were aged nine and six re- 

 spectively. 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 black- 

 bird, 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 



