82 
IN AND ABOUT A WARWICKSHIRE PARISH. 
HE things I have noted down in the following paragraphs 
have not of course been seen all at one time, in one 
walk, nor even in one season, though all in this parish. 
There is nothing fresh ; they might have been noticed 
by any one in any midland country parish. Perhaps you may 
think that I have wasted paper and ink and time in recording 
them, but the “sights” themselves gave great pleasure, the 
memoranda whiled away some hours of a raw, cold night ; and 
both the things seen and the writing them in this letter served 
to keep off an attack of what the Germans, I believe, call 
“ heimweh ” — a mild kind of home sickness to which my 
Yorkshire heart is subject. Charlotte Bronte and Emily, York- 
shire too, had this feeling at Brussels. Though, as they did, 
I miss the beautiful moors, beautiful and grand and awesome in 
their very monotony and solitude, there is to me — and you would 
find it so too — a compensation in the more populous bird-life 
among the trees and in the hedges of Warwickshire. 
On Sunday, February i8, I had to take duty at Norton, 
which is three miles from here (Claverdon Vicarage). The deep 
snows of the preceding ten days had been nearly all washed 
away by the violent rain storm of Thursday : everything was 
sodden, raw, cold — it was still winter. A hedge-sparrow — the 
“cuddy” of North Yorkshire — with its bright eyes and weary 
chirping hopped about in a hedge : at the bottom of another 
hedge I saw a couple of wrens, like a couple of mice. On the 
gatepost of a cottage garden I saw a robin : he may have been 
waiting patiently for the door to open and his breakfast to be 
given liim, but he seemed to share in the general depression. 
His tail hung down, his eyes seemed less bright than usual, he 
forgot to cock his little head on one side, he was quite indifferent 
to my approach. Instead of being a parson with a weakness for 
birds, I might have been the boy who carries milk to the 
cottages, and who throws stones at all birds and uses a catapult ; 
but perhaps Robin knew I wasn’t. It’s vain speculating about 
the opinions birds have of us. This morning, however, Little 
Bobs didn’t care a straw for anything or anyone. In this 
cottage garden, and in the strip of wood opposite, the nightin- 
gales sing in their season : the old lady who lives here tells me 
she cannot sleep for their “ hooting ; ” but she means to be kind 
to them notwithstanding, for she throws out scraps of fresh meat 
and bread crumbs for them. She has not told me she has seen 
them feeding : according to her the above ought to be the diet 
of all birds. Miss H. never comes to the gate on Sundays to 
“ tank ” i.e., to gossip with me, so I hurry on. As I pass the 
churchwardens’ rickyard, there are the ubiquitous sparrows, of 
course, but no yellow-ammers or greenfinches. Birmingham 
sparrows come out to Claverdon to take the air, I am sure, for I 
