THE IMMORTAL NIGHTINGALE 243 



The question made me curious, and I replied witli 

 caution that I would tell him if he would first tell me 

 the particular case he had in his mind just then. 



He was silent; then when we had gut back to the 

 rectory he took me round the house to where a large 

 French window opened on the lawn and a shrubbery 

 beyond. "This," he said, "is the drawing-room, and 

 my wife, who is very delicate, used always to sit there 

 behind the window on acccxmt of the aspect. We had 

 a nightingale then ; we had always had him since I 

 came to this parish many years ago. He was a most 

 beautiful singer, and every morning, as long as the 

 singing time lasted, he would perch on that small tree 

 on the edge of the lawn, directly before the window, 

 and sing for an hour or two at a stretch. We w^re 

 very proud of our bird and thought him better than 

 any nightingale we had ever heard. And he was the 

 only one in the neighbourhood ; you would have had to 

 go a mile to find another. 



"One morning about eleven o'clock I was writing in 

 my study at the other side of the house, when my wife 

 came in to me looking pale and distressed, and said a 

 strange thing had happened. She was sitting at her 

 work behind the closed window when a little bird had 

 dashed violently against the glass; then it had flown a 

 little distance away and, turning, dashed back against 

 the glass as at first ; and again it Hew off, only to turn 

 and strike the glass even more violently than before; 

 then she saw it fall fluttering down and feared it had 

 injured itself badly. I went quickly out to look, and 



