THE IMMORTAL NIGHTINGALE 241 



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 got 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 was very delicate, used always to sit 

 there behind the window on account 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 were 

 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 flew 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 found the bird, our nightingale, lying gasping and 

 16 



