SELBORNE 289 



time intently watching a small flock of greenfinches 

 settling to roost in a hazel-hedge. From time to 

 time they became disturbed at my presence, and 

 fluttering up to the topmost twigs, where their 

 forms looked almost black against the pale amber 

 sky, they uttered their long - drawn canary - like 

 note of alarm. At all times a delicate, tender 

 note, now it had something more in it — something 

 from the far past — the thought of one whose 

 memory was interwoven with living forms and 

 sounds. 



The strength and persistence of this feeling had 

 a curious effect. It began to seem to me that he 

 who had ceased to live over a century ago, whose 

 Letters had been the favourite book of several 

 generations of naturalists, was, albeit dead and gone, 

 in some mysterious way still living. I spent a long 

 time groping about in the long rank grass of the 

 churchyard in search of a memorial ; and this, 

 when found, turned out to be a modest- sized head- 

 stone, and I had to go down on my knees, and put 

 aside the rank grass that half covered it, just as 

 when we look into a child's face we push back the 

 unkempt hair from its forehead ; and on the stone 

 were graved the name, and beneath, " 1793," the 

 year of his death. 



