186 THE RECTORY AND ITS BIRDS 



their variety, were typical of the mother's hand 

 which had gathered so many of them together, and 

 of the mother's heart which had given them all a 

 welcome. The front hall door is of glass, and 

 looks westward, across a circular drive, to a thick 

 hedge which hides from view the little stream of 

 the Winterbourne, and the rich meadows of 

 the larger Frome lying immediately beyond. 

 Opposite to this door, on the other side of the hall 

 and looking over the lawn with its flower-beds, a 

 gently rising field, our playground as children, a 

 railway embankment, and behind it again to 

 " Parsonage Plantation" and " Parsonage Field," 

 was another glass door which offered a tempting 

 and, sometimes, a fatal short cut to birds, which 

 were either too lazy to fly round or over the house, 

 or were in too great a hurry to reach the stream 

 from the garden, or the garden from the stream. 

 A song-thrush and a blackbird often, and once, 

 alas ! a kingfisher, managed to shoot safely 

 through the open door on one side, only to dash 

 themselves to death against the closed glass door 

 on the other side. 



Nearly every room in the house had a character 

 of its own, but on these I must not dwell here. 

 The two staircases were a marked contrast to each 



