Window
 
 The Open Window.
 
 fi W J 
 Uoens* Window 
 
 y S. Oemple/ ofiuzdtor& 
 
 <9 lludtzated by 
 
 (jsppleton and, (oompany
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1913, BY 
 D. APPLETON AND COMPANY
 
 ^Dedications 
 
 To 
 
 ERIC LEWIS 
 
 \Y DEAR ERIC, 
 
 When it is wet in 
 Town; when you see 
 nothing but umbrellas 
 from your windows in 
 Pall Mall East and the 
 sky over Cook's offices is 
 wearing that drab ma- 
 terial of grey which is 
 only sold in cities in the 
 piece in a word, when 
 you can't just shove on 
 your hat and start out 
 for one of your walks 
 into the country, then, if 
 it pleases you, take out 
 this book, pull down the 
 blinds, light the lamp and 
 Jet me take you there in- 
 stead. 
 
 Yours, 
 
 E. TEMPLE THURSTON. 
 Gellibrands. 
 
 ooorT2 
 
 ,,CA- I w*
 
 ae G/lludtzationd 
 
 The Open Window ...... Frontispiece. 
 
 The Blackcap ............ 5 
 
 Georgina ...... ........ 25 
 
 " 'Well I I had some porridge bacon and at 
 least two eggs. So you see how impossible 
 
 it is'" ............. 33 
 
 " ' She asked Weyburn, their gardener, about it'" . 51 
 
 The Lark .............. Si 
 
 Diana ............... 105 
 
 The Dead Bullfinch .......... 149 
 
 The Vicar .............. 215 
 
 Diana and Allan ........... 271 
 
 "For the last time" ......... 319
 
 APRIL 14
 
 OUBTLESS in absence the heart 
 does grow fonder, but temper- 
 ing the sting of that absence 
 must be some certain knowl- 
 edge of return. If the pair of 
 blackcaps which, for the last four 
 years, have built their nest in the quickset 
 hedge that runs about my garden were never 
 to come back, I should miss them indeed; 
 but in time I sadly suspect that the prolonga- 
 tion of their absence would diminish my regret. 
 Human nature is thus adaptable. The sorrows of 
 this life are lessons. I hold no sympathy with 
 those who regard them as a chastisement. None 
 of which is to the point, for the blackcaps, as is the 
 nature of these little creatures, have returned to 
 their old nesting place for yet another summer. 
 
 Just as we were at tea the other evening the 
 window was wide open, for the sooner Spring 
 comes, the more ready are we to let her in I heard 
 a familiar sound. It brought the years back to me, 
 one after another in quick succession, the last four 
 years during which Georgina and I have come to 
 
 3
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 find our home in this old vicarage of Bramlingham. 
 
 "The blackcaps have come back," said I, and she 
 looked over the tea cosey at me and smiled. 
 
 It sounds very little, a slight incident indeed of 
 which to make record, but I repeat, it brought back 
 those four years. After St. Margaret's in the East 
 End, this little living of Bramlingham with its 
 church of the thirteenth century, its vicarage, in the 
 pantry of which the date 1615 stands carved upon 
 one of the oak beams well, I am no hand with the 
 pen. I cannot describe the joy or the difference 
 it is to me. 
 
 Parting, of course, is no easy matter. There 
 were many friends I left behind in that grey, deso- 
 late corner of the world. But there is always the 
 post. I hear from them constantly. They write 
 to me for advice and I reply with such counsel as 
 I can offer them. Mrs. Sumpter has another baby 
 her eighth. Is she to take any notice because 
 her husband is annoyed? I write to her that the 
 world being as it is and God being more generous 
 to those women who deserve it than to those who 
 do not, it were as well to call the child after him 
 and assure him it will be the pride of the family. 
 She replies, it is a girl. Whereupon I wait a week 
 
 4
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 or so, then write again to enquire how things are 
 going on. She replies that she has called the child 
 after his favourite sister and that he has taken 
 quite a fancy to it. We are very small and God 
 meant us to deal with little things. 
 
 I remember once standing upon a mountain and 
 watching a man walk through the pass below. If 
 ever I took my eyes away, it was difficult again to 
 find him, so minute was he amidst the boulders that 
 had rolled down the mountain side. He looked 
 no more than an ant crawling over the face of the 
 earth. I always remember that. God also sees 
 from above. 
 
 But the blackcaps have returned. The sound I 
 heard through the open window was the gentle song 
 of the male bird recording, as they call it. This is no 
 more than a soft practice of that song with which 
 he is going to woo his mate. The same song, which, 
 when once he has won her, he will sing to her in 
 the long evenings while she is set upon her nest. 
 
 As soon as I had finished my cup of tea, I went 
 out into the garden and listened. I think I would 
 as soon hear the song of a blackcap as that of a 
 nightingale. And when he is practising during 
 those early days of April, playing those tender 
 2 7
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 notes, all muted lest the secret of his song should 
 be disclosed, there is no bird in England can com- 
 pare with him in sweetness of voice. 
 
 For only a few days does this rehearsal of his 
 melody take place. Then he bursts into the free, 
 open song of his wooing, wherefore I beckoned to 
 Georgina to come into the garden and sit beside 
 me and together we both listened to the softened 
 music of his promised serenade. Whenever he 
 touched a phrase it seemed he liked, he would re- 
 peat it two or three times, a little louder on each 
 occasion, as though to gain the fullest confidence 
 of his voice. 
 
 " 'Tis nearly as good as a nightingale," said 
 Georgina. 
 
 " 'Tis better," said I. "There's not a sad note 
 in his compass." 
 
 " 'Our sweetest songs/ " she quoted, " 'are those 
 which tell of saddest ' 
 
 There must have been a lot of the woman in 
 Shelley, and it was the woman alone in him which 
 wrote such a couplet as that. Is it women, par- 
 ticularly, who find the joy in sadness? I know 
 nothing about them. 
 
 8
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "You like the nightingale best?" I asked. 
 
 "I do," said she. 
 
 Perhaps it is because women often lie awake at 
 night. Men wake early. It is then mostly that the 
 blackcap sings when the sun is up in the early 
 heaven of the morning. 
 
 When once his lyre is attuned, it is then the 
 blackcap sings indeed. He does not like to be seen 
 when he is practising his song. He hides in the 
 leafy thicknesses of the hedge. But so long as 
 you do not discover him, he will let you come 
 quite close to listen. We sat within two yards of 
 him that afternoon. 
 
 He gains more courage as the Spring draws on. 
 Indeed it is his habit when taking the place of 
 his mate upon the nest, to sing his song, beguiling 
 away the minutes as he sits upon the eggs. Hear- 
 ing that song, just four years ago, I peered into 
 the quickset hedge and found him there alone upon 
 the nest, singing away to cheer the hour of duty. 
 
 Now had I been a thoughtless boy, what might 
 he not have suffered for his folly? Men should 
 take no hand in these matters. I never meddled 
 with Georgina when Diana was born.
 
 APRIL 23
 
 T has been an extraordinarily early 
 Spring with us this year. By the 
 middle of March, the quickset hedge 
 around the garden was covered 
 with bread and cheese, as we used 
 to call it, where the elms and 
 beeches had protected it from the 
 wind. Just at about that time, on a 
 day when the sun was shining so brightly as to 
 make you forget how recently the cloak of winter 
 had been spread across the land, I met the first 
 brimstone butterfly down the little lane that leads 
 to my orchard. How thankful one is for such a 
 sight as that. I am not surprised that certain per- 
 sons are so overcome with the delight of it, that 
 they must write in haste to the papers. They are 
 proud, no doubt, of the especial honour vouchsafed 
 to them. Indeed it was the first thing I told 
 Georgina myself that evening when I came back 
 to tea. 
 
 "I saw a brimstone butterfly in the lane," said I, 
 directly I opened the door. Nothing short of a 
 promise would have bound me to keep it to myself 
 
 13
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 and Nature exacts no such promise of a man. 
 She gives you her secrets and you may tell the 
 whole world if it pleases you. And how it does 
 please! But I wish Georgina could have seen it, 
 too. 
 
 Here, too, we are, not yet out of April and she 
 is complaining that some daffodillies are already 
 faded. I leave the garden to her. The woods and 
 the fields are more than enough for me. Indeed 
 a man might well make study of a single hedge 
 and he would find enough therein to engage him 
 for a whole lifetime. 
 
 Of course Georgina does not work all the garden 
 by herself. We have a handy man. The last vicar 
 of Bramlingham employed him, and when I took 
 over the living, I could not find it in my conscience 
 to send him away. It is not that we do not need 
 him, but I cannot bring myself to like his face. 
 He is civil and willing enough no doubt, and when 
 I find these narrow prejudices rising in my mind, 
 I must struggle with myself to keep them down. 
 No man should judge another by his countenance. 
 He may inherit features which have no relation to 
 the mind which God has given him. I am sure, 
 at heart, that Hodgins is an excellent man. 
 
 14
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 But strangely enough, I rather feel that Georgina 
 is of the same opinion as am I. What is more, it 
 is for the same reason, too. She does not like 
 his face, but has never informed me that she does 
 not like the man. Perhaps it is merely my prejudice 
 which tells me that is why. I only remember a 
 little conversation that once passed between us soon 
 after we had come to Bramlingham. 
 
 "What is it," she asked me, "that makes Hodgins 
 such an ugly man?" 
 
 "Is he ugly?" said I. "I should have thought he 
 had good features." 
 
 "I know," she replied quickly, "his features are 
 all right, almost superior for that class of man 
 but whenever he looks at me, I can't help thinking 
 how ugly he is." 
 
 "You don't dislike him on that account, do you, 
 Georgina?" I enquired. 
 
 "Oh, no," she replied earnestly, "but do you 
 remember Acres, the gardener we had at home, 
 before we married? You used to see him surely 
 whenever you came over?" 
 
 "Do you mean that ugly looking chap," said I, 
 "the man with a red moustache and a nose that 
 wasn't quite straight?" 
 
 15
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "Ah but he was such a splendid fellow," said 
 she. 
 
 It is probably my prejudice again. Perhaps she 
 meant nothing by that comparison at all. 
 
 V 
 
 The Lark 
 
 The larks in our meadows have already paired. 
 The flocks have broken up and I know we are on 
 the verge of summer. Early this morning, the day 
 broke grey and still, I saw one trying to rise above 
 the mist which hung about the country. But the 
 
 16
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 atmosphere was too heavy even for the lightness 
 of his heart. He rose some thirty feet above the 
 ground, striving with beating wings and a trembling 
 song to lift himself above the mist into the sun- 
 shine above. But it was no good. After a brave 
 struggle he sank back again into the grass of the 
 meadow and I saw him no more. It reminded me 
 of the days when depression sets in upon me. It 
 reminded me of the days when I have given way 
 without even one effort to rise above the mist. In- 
 deed there are books in the running brooks; there 
 are sermons in stone and all the lessons I have ever 
 learnt, I found in the hedgerows and the fields. 
 
 Last year I watched a merlin hovering above the 
 meadows beyond our orchard. Georgina was with 
 me. 
 
 "She's up to no good," said I, and as she swooped 
 downwards a lark rose swiftly out of a clump of 
 reddening sorrel. Swiftly he ascended with the 
 hawk in hot pursuit. Georgina took my hand and 
 held it closely. 
 
 "Why is it?" she whispered, and I think I know 
 all the questions in her mind. "What has the poor 
 little lark done?" 
 
 But I did not answer just then and we watched 
 17
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 the chase together. With all the strength of its 
 wings, the powerful creature strove to soar above 
 the lark. At a great height so that our heads 
 were thrown back to watch it, it succeeded so far. 
 Beneath it the lark was fluttering with trembling 
 wings. I think we both then held our breath. It 
 swooped downwards again, but with a swift flight 
 the lark swerved out of reach, then closing its 
 wings, it dropped like a falling stone and in a mo- 
 ment was hidden in the tall grass of the meadow 
 once more. 
 
 I looked at Georgina. 
 
 "That's what it has done," said I. "It's learnt 
 to nerve itself to great effort. That lark now 
 perhaps will rise above the mist and find the sun- 
 shine where another one might fail." 
 
 "I don't think they ought to be tried so much," 
 said she. "Do you mean to say they wouldn't 
 learn without?" 
 
 "Do you regret St. Margaret's in the East End ?" 
 I asked her. 
 
 She looked up at me and smiled. 
 
 Then all round about her she looked at the 
 stream that wanders by at the foot of the meadows 
 where the sedge-warblers and the reed-buntings 
 
 18
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 build each year. She looked at the vicarage chim- 
 neys, their smoke a milky blue among the trees. 
 She looked at the carpet of cuckoo flowers that 
 spreads down to the stream's edge. 
 All this is our sun above the mist.
 
 APRIL 30
 
 FOUND a dead robin in the 
 thicket of laurel shrubs near the 
 gate this morning and all day 
 have vainly endeavoured to 
 imagine the cause of its death. 
 There were no signs of violence 
 upon its body. Its feathers 
 practically were unruffled. Had 
 it been the cat, surely she would have eaten it. 
 Can it have been old age ? Can birds ever grow old ? 
 I have said no word of it to Georgina. 
 But this evening, I went out to examine it again, 
 curious in my mind to learn the cause of its death. 
 I approached it with no thought of caution and for 
 a moment was surprised to find that it had shifted 
 from the position in which I had seen it last. As 
 I stooped down to look at it more closely, I dis- 
 covered that the earth had been scratched away 
 at each side of its body. Then I guessed what was 
 happening. The sexton-beetle was doing his work 
 and, taking up a position as near as I dared, I 
 waited and watched the burial of one of God's 
 creatures over which no service was read other 
 3 23
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 than by the voice of Nature. Never have I at- 
 tended a more solemn or inspiring burial before. 
 It was as though God himself, who counts the 
 sparrows when they fall, had leant his hand to the 
 spade to consecrate this little creature to the earth. 
 
 There is nothing very beautiful about the bury- 
 ing-beetle, with its large head by means of which 
 it scoops out the ground beneath the body it inters. 
 Its brown wings, the orange coloured spots and 
 bands upon the abdomen make it in no way re- 
 markable. Only the stag-beetle amongst its kind 
 seems beautiful to me. But the sexton is surely 
 the most interesting of these insects you may come 
 across. 
 
 With the utmost care, working incessantly and 
 methodically, the mould was slowly scooped away 
 from under the robin's body. Almost impercepti- 
 bly it was lowered below the level of the ground. 
 When I left them, their excavations were almost 
 half an inch deep. The little robin was sinking 
 to its last rest. 
 
 At tea-time, Georgina asked me what were my 
 thoughts. 
 
 "I was thinking," said I, "of my sermon for 
 next Sunday." 
 
 24
 
 Georgina
 
 This was true enough for it to be the truth. 
 I was thinking how I would speak about the dignity 
 of Nature as compared with the need of it in men. 
 But had I told her the whole truth, I should have 
 had to speak of the dead robin and it was not 
 necessary to distress her mind. 
 
 I was indeed thinking of the sexton-beetles, still 
 at their work, how silently and without the need 
 of ceremony they laboured at their task. It is our 
 custom to have our bodies laid to rest with candle, 
 bell and book. But surely God must receive the 
 poor body he has made as willingly, if not more so, 
 when it is given silently and without vanity to the 
 grave. 
 
 Perhaps it is heresy for me, a clergyman, to 
 say this, but I think I would sooner that two 
 honest men dug silently my grave and laid me 
 down when all the village was asleep.
 
 MAY i
 
 HE vicar of Maple St. Dennis came 
 over to see me this morning shortly 
 after breakfast. I went into the little 
 room which is my study and found 
 him there. I believe Georgina uses 
 the study more than I. 
 
 "Good-morning, Mr. Hanbury," 
 said he. 
 
 "Good-morning," I replied, and we 
 shook hands. 
 
 "I'm in a very difficult position," 
 he informed me, and I told him how 
 much I regretted to hear it. 
 
 "Well," he continued, "I came to you, because 
 with your last living in the East End, I thought 
 perhaps you might have come across a similar case 
 and could assist me with your advice." 
 
 I told him it was very good of him to think of 
 me and that if in any way I could help him most 
 certainly I would. I remember, as I said that, a 
 hope flashing across my mind that it would not 
 occupy too much of my time. I wanted to see the 
 bury ing-beetles at the conclusion of their work. I
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 admit I confess this to mortify myself. It was a 
 thought I put aside as quickly as it came. 
 
 "What is it?" said I. 
 
 He explained then how the doctor of Maple St. 
 Dennis had sent word to him that morning that 
 an old woman in the village was dying and wanted 
 him to administer the Holy Sacrament to her be- 
 fore she passed away. 
 
 "The doctor assures me," he continued, "that I 
 had better come as quickly as possible, since she 
 cannot last out the day." 
 
 "Well?" said I for quite honestly I could not 
 see his difficulty then. 
 
 "Well, my dear sir," said he, "of course, don't 
 you see, I've had my breakfast. It's not even as 
 if I took a light meal at that hour of the day. 
 Breakfast is my most hearty meal. I am an early 
 riser. In fact I take a constitutional at that hour. 
 It gives me an appetite. Now you see how 
 can I possibly consecrate the Bread and Wine 
 under such circumstances? Had I just had a 
 piece of toast and a cup of tea, it might have been 
 different." 
 
 "What did you have?" said I. 
 
 "Well I I had some porridge bacon and at 
 32
 
 'Well 7 7 had some porridge bacon and at least two 
 poached eggs. So you see how impossible it is.'"
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 least two poached eggs. So you see how impossible 
 it is." 
 
 "You mean," said I, "that it is impossible to give 
 the old lady Holy Communion?" 
 
 "Impossible for me certainly perhaps have 
 you had your breakfast?" 
 
 "I have," said I, "and it was not merely toast 
 and tea, but I shall be only too willing to officiate. 
 The greatest service of the Church to me is the 
 comfort She can bring. Shall I come with you 
 now?" 
 
 "If you've had a similar meal to what I have," 
 he replied, "I'm afraid I cannot permit it in my 
 parish. No doubt your ideas are more low church 
 than mine. I have nothing to say if you should 
 wish to do it here, of course. But in Maple St. 
 Dennis, I, and I think I can speak for my parish- 
 ioners as well, think differently." 
 
 I paused a moment before I answered. 
 
 "Well there is the reserved Sacrament," said I. 
 "You can get that in London if you send a tele- 
 gram for it at once. You would have it here by 
 this afternoon." 
 
 "How?" he asked. 
 
 "It could be sent with a messenger by train?" 
 
 35
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "You don't mean travel in an ordinary carriage 
 with passengers who might be making coarse jests, 
 or speaking irreverently with people even who 
 might be of other religious thought some perhaps 
 with no religion at all." 
 
 "The old lady is dying," said I, "and death will 
 not wait." 
 
 "I'm afraid," he replied, "you can't help me. 
 I'm sorry. We see things evidently from different 
 points of view." 
 
 I walked to the gate of our little drive with him. 
 Then, as I turned away, I stepped into the thicket 
 of laurels. The robin had been buried. I could 
 just see the marks of the new mould showing the 
 spot where it lay. The beetles had deposited the 
 eggs of their young in its body and there anew the 
 young life would come forth again. The wind just 
 trembled the laurel leaves. Then everything was 
 still. Without ceremony, without vanity, the last 
 office had been performed. God had taken His 
 hand from the spade.
 
 MAY 10
 
 'FAMILY of long-tailed tits have 
 visited the garden. At the end of 
 last month I heard the cry of their 
 pass-word which, when they are 
 upon their travels, keeps the brood 
 together. Zit-zit Zit-zit I heard 
 it all about the garden. One of 
 the males came fearlessly to the 
 window-sill of my study. How 
 strangely like some old men they 
 are. The loose grey feathers about their heads, 
 the short hooked beak add, I suppose, to the comi- 
 cal appearance of old age. 
 
 I called to Georgina. She came in with her 
 duster in her hand to look at him. When she 
 saw him she laughed. 
 
 "I suppose that's how you'll laugh at me one 
 day," said I. 
 
 "We shall be laughing together then," said she. 
 
 That is more than a week ago and I still hear 
 
 the cry zit-zit about the garden. I believe or 
 
 is it that I hope they have come to stay. Perhaps 
 
 they are going to build. There will be few cater- 
 
 4 39
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 pillars on my rose trees this summer and I shall 
 pay nothing for their extermination. God has His 
 gardeners. 
 
 I can imagine when all the world was a garden 
 and man had not been born. Every creature then 
 must have been turned to His account. I wonder 
 if Hodgins or his like are better substitutes. I 
 prefer the appearance of the long-tailed tit. 
 
 But I hope it is true. I hope they really are 
 going to build in the garden. It seems almost too 
 much to expect that after all their journey ings 
 throughout the winter, they should select this spot 
 so that I may watch all those interesting prepara- 
 tions of the home. For the nest of the long-tailed 
 tit is a most elaborate undertaking. She will spend 
 as long as three weeks in the making of it. I have 
 known her, when the building operations did not 
 go to her satisfaction, take nearly as many as four. 
 
 I used to notice the houses they built in the 
 suburbs of London; dwellings to last a man his 
 lifetime and in two months time from the laying 
 of the first brick, there was a family in occupation. 
 
 They did not build like that when this old 
 vicarage was set down amidst the beech trees. Far 
 away across the rolling plains of cornland, I see 
 
 40
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 sometimes from my bedroom window the white 
 smoke of a train as it winds in and out between 
 
 The Long-tailed Tit 
 
 the dark blue belts of trees. That I should think 
 is the only difference in the landscape since the 
 first vicar of Bramlingham looked out of his bed- 
 room window across the country side. 
 
 When I look at the frame work of great oak 
 41
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 beams hewn laboriously with an axe to give them 
 simple shape, I often wish there was such leisure 
 in life now as there was then. All these inventions 
 of modern science merely put on the hands of the 
 clock to hasten the day's completion. But it does 
 not alter time. The day is just as long as ever it 
 was and the labourer's work is not over till the sun 
 has set. 
 
 But the long-tailed tit builds just the same as 
 ever she did. With just as much care she selects 
 the lichen for the walls of her dome-shaped nest 
 and knits it all together with wool; with just as 
 much trouble she felts together the inside with rain- 
 proof dome of cobweb and of moss, laying her 
 carpet of the finest feathers she can find. 
 
 We, who are ever progressing, outgrow the 
 knowledge we have had that we may attain to 
 some other knowledge beyond our reach. If it 
 were not that amongst all the wisdom which we 
 lose, we had retained the knowledge of God, I sup- 
 pose the world would have grown old indeed. 
 
 The whole family of long-tailed tits have just 
 flown past my window now. Straight as an arrow 
 they follow one behind the other and if any should 
 stray, the cry, zit-zit, brings him back again into 
 
 42
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 line. So they have traversed miles and miles of 
 country all the winter through. 
 
 Here in these parts they call them long-tail mag. 
 Indeed the long-tailed tit has more nick-names than 
 any other bird I know. "Bottle Tom," I have 
 heard him called, "poke-pudding," "mum-ruffin," 
 and I believe there are many other names by which 
 he is known. 
 
 The female has flown past my window again. 
 She carried a piece of moss in her beak. I must 
 go and tell Georgina. The long-tailed tits are 
 going to build.
 
 MAY 18
 
 URING the Easter holidays, Diana 
 informed me that she has seen 
 a white sparrow in the nut-trees 
 near the orchard. I am sure it 
 is a morbid instinct which ex- 
 cites our interest in the abnormal. 
 A thing is not real because it 
 happens. 
 
 Reading my paper the other 
 morning, I chanced for a moment to look at the 
 reviews of recent novels. These do not interest 
 me, for I take no pleasure in the reading of the 
 books themselves. Nature herself seems so full of 
 stories, stories of romance, of tragedy, of comedy, 
 of what you will, that I for one should become a 
 spendthrift of my time were I to study them. I 
 know there are many who choose to have life put 
 before them rather than see it for themselves. I 
 do not grudge the novel to them. Georgina reads 
 them sometimes. Sometimes she recounts to me 
 the stories which they tell. How strange it must 
 be to have to invent, when life itself is so full of 
 stories that no one ever has told. 
 
 47
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 However, I read one of these reviews. The 
 author, so the critic said, had marred his work by 
 too desultory an attention to realism. I remember 
 that struck me as an odd phrase. I wondered why 
 the critic had gone so far out of his way to think 
 of it. "Mr. So and so," he continued, "relies too 
 much upon coincidence." 
 
 I don't know whether that is a usual thing for 
 critics to say, but it struck me as being full of 
 illumination. The author had not paid sufficient 
 attention to realism he had relied too much upon 
 coincidence. Now that exactly describes what I 
 feel about things abnormal in nature. They are 
 coincidences which happen, but they are not real. 
 There are far more unpleasant and unsightly forms 
 of coincidence than albinism and people are mor- 
 bidly curious and interested even in them. 
 
 When I was a child I recollect being taken to 
 a travelling show of human freaks. The horror 
 of it comes back to my mind still clearly whenever 
 I think of it. My nurse who brought me there 
 seemed to take a great delight in all she saw. And 
 that is the mind of a great many persons. 
 
 I, too, found myself particularly interested when 
 Diana told me of the white sparrow. I have seen 
 
 48
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 a blackbird with a white wing, but never a complete 
 specimen of albinism. I asked Hodgins had he 
 seen it; he was more in the garden than any of us. 
 He looked surprised and told me he had not. He 
 had never heard, he said, of such a thing. Where- 
 upon I explained to him how in an albino, Nature 
 fails to supply the necessary pigment to the skin 
 and that a blackbird has been known to be pure 
 white. 
 
 It seemed to me at the time that he was not 
 interested. I could have said a lot more upon the 
 subject, but he showed me by unmistakable little 
 signs that he wanted to get back to his work. He 
 spat in his hands three times and handled his spade. 
 After the third time I went away. I would never 
 hinder any man in his industry. But I confess 
 his want of interest had surprised me, for Hod- 
 gins is by way of being a bird fancier himself. 
 He has many canaries in cages at his cottage 
 and appears to bestow the greatest care upon 
 them. 
 
 Diana has gone back again to school now and 
 the white sparrow has not been seen since. Never- 
 theless, I have discovered all about it. Georgina 
 came to my study this afternoon and the moment 
 
 49
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 I saw her face, I knew that something was the 
 matter. 
 
 "My dear, what has happened?" I asked. 
 
 I believe some people think it foolish, but we 
 always call each other my dear. 
 
 "Mrs. Naismith has just called," said she. "She 
 has seen the white sparrow and she asked Wey- 
 burn, their gardener, about it." 
 
 "Diana was right then," I replied. "She'll have 
 a lot of observation, that child, when she grows 
 up." 
 
 ."Yes, but it was not an albino," said Georgina. 
 "Weyburn told Mrs. Naismith that one day when 
 he and the boy were over here, helping with the 
 pea-sticks, Hodgins told them that he had caught 
 a sparrow in a trap and painted it white. He was 
 boasting about it." 
 
 "Caught a sparrow," I repeated, "and painted 
 it white !" And then there flashed across my mind 
 how a few weeks ago I had told Hodgins to paint 
 the white gate at the end of the drive. 
 
 "When did he do this?" I asked. 
 
 "A few weeks ago," replied Georgina. 
 
 It was all I could do then to keep my mind from 
 condemning him already. 
 
 50
 
 'She asked Weyburn, their gardener, 
 about it.' "
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 For a few moments we looked at each other in 
 silence and then Georgina said, "I never have liked 
 Hodgins." 
 
 "But we don't know that he did it," said I. 
 "We've only Weyburn's word for it." 
 
 "And the boy's," said she. "You don't think he 
 hasn't done it, do you ?" she added. 
 
 "I don't want to think," said I, and I took her 
 hand. "I'll speak to him tomorrow. Remember, 
 he's fond of birds. He has at least five pet 
 canaries." 
 
 "I've thought of that," she replied. 
 
 "Well you must keep on thinking of it," said I. 
 
 "I do," said she. "It only makes it worse." 
 
 It makes it all the worse to me, too. I wish I 
 were not so certain of his guilt. Now, had it been 
 Acres, we neither of us should have believed it for 
 a moment.
 
 iiT is said of the red-backed shrike that it 
 flays the bodies of its victims and hangs 
 up their skins near its nest as the 
 trophies of victory. That the butcher- 
 bird, as he is best known, lives upon 
 the young of other birds and, stealing 
 them from the nest, impales them upon 
 the points of thorns in its larder, is 
 established. I found such a larder 
 myself last year in a thick blackthorn 
 bush in the midst of the spinney near 
 our orchard. Two young sparrows and a half- 
 fledged white-throat were thus suspended by the 
 side of the nest in which I found four young shrikes 
 exhibiting signs of a voracious appetite. 
 
 For a moment at the sight of it, I was stirred to 
 an accusation of cruelty. Those little bodies with 
 the blackthorn through their necks, shrivelled and 
 still, seemed so wanton an act of Nature, that I 
 turned away and walked home, wondering why the 
 spirit of living and letting live had come so late 
 into the world. 
 
 "How many years," said I to myself, "must the 
 57
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 earth have been in darkness before the coming of 
 the Son of God!" 
 
 It was at our midday meal that very day that 
 Georgina looked across the table at me and said : 
 
 "Why does Suskind make such a show of all 
 the meat he has for sale? I suppose every butcher 
 does it, but why must they? We know what they 
 sell. There's no necessity for them to hang up 
 their dead bodies on hooks right in front of the 
 shop." 
 
 Perhaps it was a long time before I answered, 
 because, presently, I heard Georgina repeat her 
 question. 
 
 "Why is it?" said she. 
 
 "Because the earth's still in darkness," I replied. 
 "One of these days perhaps we shall know how to 
 live without preying upon each other. One of 
 these days we may grow to be ashamed of taking 
 life. There's still too much of the Old Testament 
 in us still too little of the New." 
 
 Yet, however Suskind may be like the red-backed 
 shrike in the habit of dressing his window, he does 
 not lure his victim with cunning. I have read that 
 this characteristic is questionable in the red-backed 
 shrike. But I have proved it to be true. 
 
 58
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 Last year I made close observation of the shrike 
 that had built in the blackthorn bush in the spinney. 
 When the brood was well advanced and more 
 voracious in their appetites than ever, I saw the 
 female on one occasion from my hiding-place, 
 seated, in concealment such as mine, behind a 
 cluster of bramble leaves. She sat perfectly still 
 as still as I and I wondered what her intentions 
 were. 
 
 Presently I heard the notes of the yellow ham- 
 mer. Yellow ammer as it should properly be spelt. 
 The song is unmistakable. It is as though she 
 were begging from door to door and dared not 
 ask too much. Indeed in Devonshire, the country 
 folk call her, "Little-bread-and-no-cheese." Her 
 song is just like that. "A little bit of bread 
 and no cheese," is her plaint, all on one note until 
 at the last word it drops into a minor third 
 below. 
 
 I looked with caution at my watch. True to the 
 custom of her song it was nearly three o'clock. 
 And then I gazed about me to see where she could 
 be. My eye as it wandered here and there came 
 back again to the shrike. Just at that moment 
 the song broke out afresh. I saw the swelling of 
 
 59
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 the shrike's throat, the beak just opened to emit 
 the notes. She was imitating the yellow hammer 
 to lure the young birds to her grasp. I could not 
 
 The Red-backed Shrike 
 
 believe it at first until at the faint chirping noise 
 in the bushes, I saw her swoop forwards. A mo- 
 ment later she had brought back a young bird in 
 her claws. 
 
 Perhaps I moved then, for taking sudden fright, 
 she flew away, though never dropping her prey. 
 
 60
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 The next morning I found a young yellow hammer 
 hanging in her larder. 
 
 Not only had she imitated the voice, but had 
 chosen the very hour at which the yellow hammer's 
 note is most times heard. 
 
 "Suskind does not do things like that," said I to 
 myself. I don't know why I felt it necessary to 
 defend Suskind against my own conscience. He 
 does perhaps make an unnecessary show of the 
 meat he sells, but he is an honest, open-hearted 
 fellow. 
 
 I come back to this note-book of mine for the 
 second time today to add that I have spoken to 
 Hodgins about the white sparrow. I spoke as 
 kindly as I could, not wishing that he should see 
 for one moment the suspicion which, despite all my 
 efforts, was harbouring in my mind. He came into 
 my study. 
 
 "I hear from Weyburn," said I, for I had ques- 
 tioned Weyburn myself first, "that a little while 
 ago you caught a sparrow in a trap and painted it 
 white." 
 
 "It's a lie," said he promptly. 
 
 I wished he had not been so prompt. If this 
 was the first he had heard of it, it seemed to me 
 
 61
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 that he should have shown more surprise. My 
 suspicions grew deeper. I felt I knew he had done 
 it then and the more I knew, the more I kept sus- 
 picion from my voice. 
 
 "Why, then," said I, "does he tell this story 
 about you?" 
 
 " 'Cos 'e 'as a grudge, I s'pose," he replied. 
 
 "Well what are you going to do about it?" I 
 asked. "It's not a nice thing to have said about 
 one. I think I'm right in saying it's a punishable 
 offence. What are you going to do?" 
 
 He replied that he did not know. 
 
 "And you say it's not true?" said I. 
 
 "No it's a lie." 
 
 "But the boy corroborates his story," said I. 
 
 I was quite sure he had done it. 
 
 "Can't 'elp what the boy said," replied he. " 'e's 
 been told to say it." 
 
 "Then I'm to understand that what Weyburn's 
 told me is not true." 
 
 "Yes it's a lie," he repeated. 
 
 I did not like his face as he said that. But then 
 I have never liked it. I tried to think that until 
 that moment I had. 
 
 "Do you know that he says you told him this 
 62
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 about the sparrow just at about the time you were 
 painting the gate at the top of the drive painting 
 it with white paint?" 
 
 He looked sullenly at me. I suppose my per- 
 sistence was leading him to realise that I knew his 
 guilt. Then suddenly his face lit up with malice. 
 
 "Did Weyburn tell you 'e tarred a sparrow?" 
 he asked me and in the answering expression in my 
 eyes must have known how fatal a step that was. 
 
 "You've said a very foolish thing," said I. 
 
 Sullenly he asked me why. 
 
 "Well do you wish me to believe what you 
 say?" 
 
 "Yus." 
 
 "That's the truth?" 
 
 "Yus." 
 
 "Then why am I not to believe Weyburn ? Why 
 is your story the truth and his a lie?" 
 
 I knew I had caught him then. He knew it, too. 
 His face grew whiter as he tried to meet my eyes. 
 
 "Do you wish me to believe it?" I persisted. 
 
 "Yus," said he. 
 
 "Then I must believe Weyburn," I replied. 
 
 "You can believe what you like," said he. 
 "Weyburn tarred a sparrow." 
 
 63
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "And you painted yours white?" 
 
 There was a moment's pause. He looked at me 
 to see how firm was my mind in that statement. 
 Then he gave in. 
 
 "Well I did paint a sparrow if yer want to 
 know," he declared. 
 
 "I knew it," I exclaimed and, whether it be 
 to my shame or not, a thrill of pleasure passed 
 through me to know that I had forced him to 
 confess. "That's all we need say," I added. "You 
 can go. I can have no one in my service who is 
 cruel. You can go." 
 
 He turned on his heel, but at the door he looked 
 back. 
 
 "Any'ow, Weyburn tarred a sparrow," said he. 
 
 I nodded my head. 
 
 Georgina was waiting for me in the drawing- 
 room. Her cup of tea was cold. 
 
 "Well?" she exclaimed. 
 
 "He did it," said I. 
 
 "He admitted it?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "However did you get him to ?" 
 
 "I talked to him very quietly," said I. "I didn't 
 let him think I was suspicious, but I kept on at it 
 
 64
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 till he fell into a mistake. Then it was all up 
 with him." 
 
 Suddenly as I said this, I thought of the cunning 
 of the red-backed shrike, the voice she imitates to 
 lure her prey. 
 
 It is I who need defence not Suskind.
 
 MAY.
 
 ,ERHAPS it is in the nature of 
 women to be superstitious. I 
 have found traces of superstition 
 in the most sensibly-minded of 
 women. Even Georgina is not 
 exempt from it. This year she 
 heard the cuckoo before the 
 nightingale and told me about it with a quiet smile 
 as though to assure me she would take no notice 
 of it. 
 
 "But you don't really mind, do you?" said I. 
 For answer she just quoted me a passage from 
 her favourite Chaucer: 
 
 "It was a common tale 
 That it were gode to here the Nightingale 
 Moche rathir * than the lewde -j- Cuckowe singe." 
 
 I would always firmly put down superstition. 
 It belonged to the age when the mind of man was 
 in the darkness of idolatry. But how can I blame 
 Georgina? There is beauty even in the faults of 
 those we love. So it seems to me is the great 
 reality in forgiveness of sins. God loves us all. 
 * Earlier, f Unskilful. 
 
 6 9
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 But certainly the cuckoo did arrive early this 
 year. We were walking down the boundary lane 
 in the beginning of April when first those two 
 strange notes fell on my ear. E flat is the first, 
 I believe, and almost invariably C natural the 
 second. It was then Georgina told me how she had 
 heard him two days before. She must really be 
 very superstitious, for she had said no word about 
 it until then. 
 
 What a good-for-nothing fellow he is, that 
 cuckoo an inveterate wanderer without a home. 
 Seldom are the male and female ever seen together 
 and the latter, as everybody knows, builds no nest 
 but from one place to another wanders in search 
 of what food she can find. 
 
 The cuckoo I have seen flying about our meadows 
 this year, has been followed persistently and re- 
 spectfully by a pipit. I have heard of this un- 
 accountable fact with regard to these little birds be- 
 fore, but never witnessed it until this year. Wher- 
 ever the cuckoo flies, the pipit follows at a re- 
 spectful distance. When the cuckoo settles in one 
 tree, the pipit rests in another close by. The differ- 
 ence in size between them makes them a ludicrous 
 pair. 
 
 70
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 I have tried in vain to discover the reason of 
 this. It defies me at every turn. For it is in the 
 meadow pipit's nest that the cuckoo most often lays 
 
 The Cuckoo 
 
 her eggs ; yet this little creature, with a faithfulness 
 that almost amounts to fascination, seeks the com- 
 pany of the interloper, even to the extent of ignor- 
 ing her own duties of the day. 
 
 I often wonder will the cuckoo ever learn better 
 habits, ever follow the example of industriousness 
 6 71
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 which is set her by the various birds in whose nests 
 she lays her eggs. She has the choice of many, 
 for the hedge-sparrow, the robin, the sedge-warbler, 
 the red-start, the skylark, chaffinch and greenfinch 
 all of them at some time or another have shown 
 her in their various perfect ways how a home 
 should be made. In all of these she lays her eggs. 
 I have heard of a cuckoo's egg being found in the 
 nest of a wren. 
 
 But, no, the hundreds of years have gone by 
 since Pliny wrote of her and she is the same 
 vagabond as then. She will never change. Vaga- 
 bondage is in the blood. Yet I suppose even the 
 wandering spirit brings men at last to God. How 
 tired of it all they must be! 
 
 We have been without a gardener since Hodgins 
 went away. I can find nobody in Bramlingham to 
 take his place. Now at last I think I have dis- 
 covered someone. 
 
 "There's a man," said Georgina to me this morn- 
 ing, "who wants to see you. He's at the back door. 
 I'm afraid he's a tramp. But he's got a nice face." 
 
 I knew that meant that Georgina liked him and 
 hoped I would give him something wherewith to 
 help him on his way. I went round to see him. 
 
 72
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 He was a dirty-looking fellow, unshaved, with 
 shoddy clothes. But I quickly saw what it was 
 that Georgina liked in him. He had a clear and 
 an honest eye and there was a look of humour in 
 his mouth. When straightaway he asked me for 
 some work and did not want alms, I was well im- 
 pressed with him. It so happened that I had plenty 
 of work for a man to do. 
 
 "Can you dig in the garden ?" I asked. 
 
 There were few things, not requiring skilled 
 labour, which he could not do, he told me. 
 
 "When you're on the road, like as I am," said 
 he, "there's a poor chance for you if you can't turn 
 your hand to anything." 
 
 I asked him why he chose the road. 
 
 A wry smile came into his eyes. 
 
 "T'ain't choice," said he. "You come to it as 
 I did, by playin' the fool when you're young. I 
 was in the navy once and I used to think time was 
 better ashore than aboard. I stayed ashore past my 
 leave. That's what started me on the road. I got 
 sent out of the navy. Then I had to look for work 
 and when you do that you 'ave to walk to find it." 
 
 Georgina is nearly always right when she likes or 
 dislikes a man. It was honest of him to tell me 
 
 73
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 he had been turned out of the navy. Another man 
 would have hidden the fact. I took a liking to him 
 from that moment. 
 
 "But why don't you get regular work?" I asked. 
 I was determined not to let my feelings get the 
 better of my judgment, though I suppose by then 
 I had decided that I would take him on. 
 
 "Ever tried to get regular work, sir ?" he replied. 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "Well, sir, you walk for two or three days, 
 more sometimes, along the road. Your beard begins 
 to grow. You sleep out under a hedge and wake 
 up dirty in the morning. Then you set off again 
 on an empty stummick and wonder where you're 
 goin' to get your next bit of bread. Then you 
 hear there's some work to be 'ad about six miles 
 further on and you tighten your belt a bit and step 
 it out. By the time you get there you're not lookin' 
 the sort of man as they'd take on regular. If I 
 could get regular work, sir, I'd never go near 
 the road again. A free and easy life some calls 
 it the people as 'ave never tried what it's like. 
 But there ain't much freedom when yer stummick's 
 at yer day and night. As for easy !" 
 
 He looked round our garden at the rows upon 
 74
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 rows of peas and scarlet runners, at the lettuces 
 swelling below their waist belts of bass and I felt 
 ashamed of all my plenty. Certainly we know but 
 little of the lives of others. I had often thought 
 that I should like to be a tramp. It has always 
 seemed so great an opportunity for the studying of 
 Nature. I had thought of putting it to him in that 
 way, but when he cast his eyes about our well- 
 stocked garden, the suggestion seemed so ludicrous, 
 I kept the thought to myself. 
 
 "Well, I'll give you some work," said I. After 
 that glance of his, I felt I could not well do other- 
 wise. "There's some digging in the garden to be 
 done. Would you like to start at once ?" 
 
 I determined not to tell him that I had regular 
 work about the house; not certainly on our very 
 first acquaintance. But in my mind I had decided 
 that here was the very handy man we needed. "I 
 will save him," I said to myself, "I will save him 
 from the road." 
 
 "I'll just go up," said he, "and tell a friend of 
 mine what was walking with me I'll just go and 
 tell him I've got a job and then I'll come back." 
 
 I returned to the house quite pleased, with a 
 warm feeling of satisfaction in my mind. 
 
 75
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "Georgina," said I, "he'll make a splendid handy 
 man. He can turn his hand to anything. We're 
 going to save him from the road." 
 
 "I knew you'd like his face," said she. 
 
 Which was not what I meant at all.
 
 JUNE i
 
 HAVE found a pipit's nest and think it 
 must be the same one that was fas- 
 cinated by the cuckoo I saw in our 
 meadows last week, for there was the 
 cuckoo's egg along with four others 
 in the bottom of the nest. I sup- 
 pose if the cuckoo did not lay so small an egg, 
 she would never be able so successfully to practise 
 her deception as she does. I think also in this 
 case, the cuckoo must have laid her egg on the 
 ground and then, with her mouth, have deposited 
 it in the pipit's nest, when the female was away. 
 The structure is so small that the chances would 
 have been ten to one against her ever getting it 
 there in the customary manner. 
 
 And now she has left the neighbourhood. What 
 a vagabond the cuckoo is ! 
 
 Jesse Webb is the name of my new handy man. 
 He has been working for three days in the garden 
 and in that time has accomplished as much as 
 Hodgins would have done in a week. Both 
 Georgina and I are delighted with him. He has 
 
 79
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 cleaned himself up, has shaved and looks a different 
 man. 
 
 "I liked him from the first," says Georgina. 
 "When are you going to take him on for good?" 
 
 I am going to speak to him about it today. I 
 am going to give him that regular work which 
 will save him from the road. Yet the road has 
 taught him something. He is full of little wisdoms 
 and expresses them in a most humorous way. If 
 only people would give these men a chance, I feel 
 sure that half the vagrants in this country would 
 cease to exist. For Webb is not by nature untidy 
 or unclean. The morning after I had engaged him, 
 paying him at the end of the day, he came back, as 
 I said, a different being. He even had so much 
 regard for his appearance as to stick the flower of 
 a little red rose in the band of his cap. Georgina 
 was the first to notice it. 
 
 "It makes him look quite smart," said she. "The 
 colour goes beautifully with his tanned skin." 
 
 It certainly gave a finish to his appearance. 
 
 I have just been out into the garden and can 
 find Webb nowhere. He told me yesterday that 
 he had had to walk six miles before he could find 
 
 80
 
 The Lark
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 lodging. It appears they will not give a bed to these 
 men of the road, except at recognised rest houses. 
 
 "But you can't go on walking twelve miles a 
 day," said I. 
 
 "No, sir," he replied, "it ain't goin' to make me 
 much good for a 'ard day's work. But I've tried 
 every place around here and they won't take me." 
 
 Now Georgina thinks he may have been run 
 over. 
 
 I am going out into the village to enquire whether 
 anyone has seen him. 
 
 I found him myself in the Cap and Bells. He 
 was drinking a glass of beer and smiled at me 
 when I looked in. What disappointments there 
 are in life! I told him to come outside, that I 
 wanted to speak to him. He followed me 
 obediently. 
 
 "Why haven't you come to work this morning?" 
 I asked. 
 
 "Well, sir," said he, "I 'ad to walk six miles 
 again this mornin'. I started to get ready at 'alf 
 past five. There was the clock pointing to 'alf 
 past five. I asked for a cup of coffee just before 
 I started. The coffee wasn't ready and they 
 
 83
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 brought me a glass of beer. Well, I felt cold in- 
 side, sir, so I took it. Then I got talking and 
 presently I looked again at the clock and it was still 
 'alf past five. The blessed thing wasn't going, sir. 
 'Twas 'alf past six. So I started at once to come 
 along 'ere " 
 
 "And on the way?" said I. 
 
 "Yes, sir, on the way I 'ad a glass or two. And 
 then it seemed to me well what did it matter. I 
 couldn't get here in time, so I just came along 
 and sat in the Cap and Bells. I was going down 
 presently to get my things and then I was goin' 
 on." 
 
 "Back to the road?" I asked. 
 
 "Back to the road," said he. 
 
 "And what you wanted," said I, "was regular 
 work. Now do you know I was going to give 
 you regular work? I'd taken a fancy to you." 
 
 "Yes, sir," he replied, "that's what I thought. 
 That gent's taken a fancy to you, I said here's 
 your chance. But what's the good the road's got 
 'old of me. I couldn't get here in time. I'd lost 
 me day. I might as well get back on to the road 
 again." 
 
 "But if you'd come to me even though you 
 84
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 were late, it would have been all right. Why don't 
 you trust your fellow creatures more?" 
 
 " 'Ave you ever 'ad to work in a gang, sir ?" 
 
 I admitted I had not. 
 
 He nodded his head. He evidently thought I 
 had not. 
 
 "Well now," said I, "suppose I give you still 
 another chance. You go and get the drink out of 
 your head and come back here at two o'clock. I'll 
 give you work for three weeks and if you're all 
 right then, I'll make it longer. In the meantime, 
 I'll find you lodging." 
 
 He looked straight into my eyes and then, pulling 
 the little red rose out of his cap, he dropped it on 
 the ground. 
 
 "I'll be back 'ere at two o'clock, sir," said he. 
 
 But three o'clock came and there were no signs 
 of him. I went back apprehensively to the Cap 
 and Bells. Jesse Webb was lying on the seat out- 
 side lost in a drunken sleep. The landlord came 
 out and looked at him. 
 
 "Those sort ain't no good, sir," said he. "They're 
 born on the road and they sticks to the road. You 
 might'a known when you saw him put that rose in 
 his cap." 
 
 85
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "Why?" I enquired. "What does it mean?" 
 
 "It means as 'ow they've got money for to 'ave a 
 good old drunk." 
 
 I turned away in despair. 
 
 "And it looked so well in his cap," said Georgina 
 when I told her. 
 
 The Pipit 
 
 At half past five he came down to the back door 
 to get a piece of sacking and an old briar-wood 
 walking stick he had left behind. I met him slink- 
 ing away up the drive. He was still greatly in- 
 toxicated. 
 
 "What a fool you've been," said I. 
 86
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "Yeshir," he said thickly. "Itsha besht chance I 
 shall ever 'av." 
 
 And then he looked at me with the twinkle in 
 his eyes which Georgina and I had both liked so 
 much and he said, "Mishsta Young draws all hish 
 water from Canterbury," and with that he rolled 
 away. 
 
 I don't know what he meant by it. 
 
 As he opened the gate onto the road, I saw a 
 man join him and they walked away together. 
 
 "The cuckoo and the pipit," thought I. Yet the 
 wandering spirit must bring a man at last to God. 
 How tired of it all they must be!
 
 JUNE 3
 
 AST night Georgina complained of 
 feeling unwell. She went early 
 to bed and I settled her com- 
 fortably on the pillows. Later, 
 I crept upstairs, hoping to find 
 her asleep. She was still awake. 
 
 "I've been listening to the 
 nightingale," said she. "Has he 
 ever been so late before?" 
 
 I believe she was thinking of 
 how she had heard the cuckoo 
 first. 
 
 This morning her temperature 
 is very high. I have sent for the doctor. I wonder 
 why the nightingale was so late this year.
 
 JUNE 5
 
 HAVE sent for Diana. The doctor fears 
 typhoid fever. He took me down 
 into the study after he had seen 
 Georgina yesterday and, when I had 
 closed the door, told me what he was 
 afraid was her complaint. 
 
 "It may be only a mild form," said he. 
 "She's got a good constitution. She 
 may throw it off without it becoming much more 
 serious than it is at present." 
 "It is serious now?" I asked. 
 "It is," said he. 
 
 We stood in silence then by the open window; 
 in silence as one does when there are th* many 
 things one dare not say. The sparrows were chat- 
 tering loudly in the ivy. Around the house the 
 swifts were chasing each other with joyous 
 screams, exulting in their power of wing, rejoicing 
 in the cloudless sky. Again and again they ap- 
 peared, then disappeared; now flying high above 
 the laburnum trees, now flying low across the 
 purple iris. Even there in that room we could 
 
 95
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 hear the purr of the wind in their wings as they 
 swept by. 
 
 U 
 
 "Somewhere in the quickset hedge a 
 robin was singing." 
 
 Somewhere in the quickset hedge a robin was 
 singing; the deep-throated blackbird made his 
 sudden flights. We could hear his notes like water 
 dropping in a well. Beyond the orchard where 
 the spinney lies, I saw the sharp blue spurt of a 
 
 96
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 pigeon from the wood and in the elm tree over by 
 the gate a dove sat cooing her three plaintive notes. 
 
 It was then I knew how much the joy of the 
 world lies in the mind of a man to find it. These 
 were the sounds to which, when I was a boy at 
 home and now, during these four years since we 
 have lived in Bramlingham, I have listened with 
 such thankfulness, such unquestioning delight. 
 They have been to me the very voice of Nature 
 singing, as we sing in the choir on Sunday, to the 
 glory of God. Yet whereas our efforts are poor, 
 though they may not be vain, this choir of birds 
 in the hedgerows has not one note which does 
 not harmonise to perfect beauty. 
 
 Often I notice when we sing the Te Deum in 
 church, how Suskind's voice, carried away no doubt 
 by the devotion in his mind, rises loud and dis- 
 cordant above the others. From where I sit, I can 
 see Georgina and I know by her face that he is 
 singing out of tune. My own ear tells me of it, 
 too. But nothing jars me when the birds sing in 
 our garden; there is not one note but which adds 
 to the glad beauty of it all. 
 
 And yet, this morning, as I stood there by the 
 open window with the doctor in silence beside me, 
 the beauty had all gone from their voices; their 
 
 97
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 gladness hurt me. A fear that Georgina might not 
 live was disquieting all my mind. I wanted them 
 to sing in tune with my dejection and there they 
 trilled their voices in sheer joyousness of heart. 
 
 "Do you hear the birds?" said I at last. 
 
 "I hear them," said he. "They must be a joy to 
 you after London and the East End." 
 
 "Are they a joy to you?" I asked. 
 
 "Why, yes " said he. "I don't know a lot 
 
 about them like you do, but, my goodness, I should 
 miss 'em." 
 
 I had it on my lips to say they sung of nothing 
 but sadness to me then, but just kept back the 
 words. 
 
 "If I find them sad," I said to myself, "it is not 
 their trouble of which they sing but mine. Why 
 then should I cast down the heart of anyone be- 
 cause my own has fallen low?" 
 
 It is not our duty to make the world. Our 
 duty should be to find it as it is. Only the bravest 
 and the brightest heart can make such discovery 
 as that. 
 
 I will just creep upstairs and see whether 
 Georgina is asleep. If she is, I shall drive myself 
 
 to meet Diana. 
 
 98
 
 JUNE 8
 
 HE last few days have been days of 
 silence. Diana and I creep about the 
 house, speaking only in whispers 
 when we meet in the passages, talk- 
 ing below our breath when occasion- 
 ally we meet at meals. Alternately 
 by night, we take our watch in the 
 sickroom and, by the dim light of a 
 bedside lamp, wait anxiously for the 
 first glimmer of dawn. 
 
 At breakfast yesterday, Diana said 
 to me: 
 
 "Why is it that everything seems so hopeless 
 in the middle of the night?" 
 "Does it to you, too ?" said I. 
 "Yes I sit there by the side of Mother's bed 
 wondering if she will ever be well again and then, 
 as soon as the daylight comes, it seems all different. 
 I feel sure she'll get all right again." 
 
 It is the same with me. The light of the bed- 
 side lamp is not sufficient to keep alive any promise 
 of hope in my heart. For those few hours of 
 feebly-lighted darkness, I am as one struggling in 
 
 101
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 a subterranean stream. Some instinct of self- 
 preservation keeps despair at arm's length, but I 
 
 "The sparrows are the first to chatter." 
 
 am not master of my hope again until the day 
 is lit and the dawn sweeps fast across the sky. 
 
 1 02
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 And how wonderfully the dawn does come these 
 early summer mornings. Before you could tell that 
 the blue of night has changed to grey, the birds 
 have turned in bed and twittered in their sleep. 
 It may be still an hour before they will get up, that 
 hour of semi-wakefulness which is the best of 
 sleep, the hour you know you are still sleeping and 
 yet can wake at will. 
 
 The sparrows are the first to chatter. In the 
 old vine that grows outside the window of 
 Georgina's bedroom they build and raise their 
 three and four broods every year. There is 
 much abuse to be heard concerning this rapa- 
 cious creature, but I for one would stand in his 
 defence. 
 
 In harvest time no doubt his only food is corn 
 and in the cornfields can effect no little harm. But 
 who counts all the gardening work he does in 
 winter when the fields are bare? His only feeding 
 then is the seed of weeds combined with cater- 
 pillars, worms and every grub which he can find. 
 I always think of that when I see him busily en- 
 gaged upon my raspberry canes. Would they be 
 so good if he had not eaten the wire-worms in the 
 winter? The labourer is worthy of his hire. 
 8 103
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 And for their quarrels, too, the sparrows are 
 abused. Those sudden, noisy bickerings in the 
 hedges are always sparrows settling their disputes. 
 But I have known men and women and do they 
 make it up so soon? 
 
 Yet for all that abuse of him, the sparrow still 
 confides and trusts in man. In waste places, he 
 will never build his nest, but wherever a man has 
 set his habitation, there a sparrow choses his abode. 
 I like this trustfulness and would not kill a sparrow 
 if he sat and ate my raspberries before my eyes 
 and he does. 
 
 I have just put down as they came to me my 
 thoughts of the other morning, when I sat by 
 Georgina's bedside watching the dawn creeping up 
 out of the east. That despair of which Diana 
 spoke to me must be close akin to the note of pessi- 
 mism which runs through the minds of many people 
 now. I wonder how much light has got to do 
 with it. 
 
 All thought today comes out of cities for that 
 is where all people congregate. Can it be their 
 thoughts are pessimistic because they know so little 
 of sunshine where the houses lie close together? 
 Can it be because their day is most times lit by the 
 
 104
 
 Diana
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 bedside lamp? Ts pessimism darkness, or is it a 
 natural state of mind? Is optimism light or just 
 pure sentiment? 
 
 I wish someone from the heart of the country 
 where, at the first sign of darkness, like the birds, 
 a man goes to sleep and at the first light of dawn 
 turns rest fully in his bed, I wish such a man would 
 write us his philosophy; I wish he would tell us 
 whether he can find most of beauty or most of 
 ugliness in the world. 
 
 It is when I sit by Georgina's bedside through 
 those long hours before morning, listening, only 
 listening to the fitfulness of her breathing, that my 
 thoughts are lame and trembling in despair. Like 
 Diana, when the daylight comes, I feel most cer- 
 tain that God will spare her to me. 
 
 This morning early, she woke out of a state, half 
 unconsciousness, half sleep. 
 
 "Is that you?" she whispered. 
 
 I took her hand. 
 
 "What time is it?" 
 
 I told her. 
 
 "Why aren't there any birds singing?" 
 
 "There are," said I. 
 
 "Then why don't I hear them?" 
 107
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 I told her it was because the window was shut 
 and then she begged me to open it. 
 
 "Just for one moment," she pleaded. "One 
 moment couldn't do any harm." 
 
 I gratified her wish. How could I refuse? For 
 that moment the songs of all the birds in the 
 garden trembled in the darkened room. I walked 
 to the bedside to ask her if she heard them then. 
 Her head was turned from me on the pillow and 
 I saw a big tear rolling down her cheek. 
 
 "Are you unhappy?" I whispered. 
 
 "Oh my dear," said she.
 
 JUNE 10
 
 T seven o'clock this morning, Georgina 
 died. I cannot write anything. About 
 an hour before, we knew it must be the 
 end. 
 
 Almost until the last she was uncon- 
 scious. Then a minute before she died, 
 she stirred. Her eyes opened and 
 rested first on Diana's face and then on 
 
 mine. 
 
 i 
 
 I saw her lips moving as she tried to speak. 
 Quickly I leant across the bed to hear what she had 
 to say. 
 
 "Open the window, my dear," she breathed. 
 
 I obeyed at once and when I turned back to 
 the bedside, she had gone. The look of gratitude 
 was still there in her face. For one instant she 
 had heard the birds at their singing. I am glad 
 she heard them once more before she died.
 
 APRIL 8
 
 HAD thought I should never open this 
 note-book again. Something in the 
 spirit of it and its making seemed 
 so closely connected with Georgina 
 when she was alive that with her 
 death, I felt it to be a closed book. 
 
 When they lowered the coffin into 
 the grave and as one by one the shovelfuls of earth 
 were heaped upon it, I said to myself that there my 
 life had ended also. Something of me was buried, 
 too, that day. If I were master of my pen I might 
 attempt to explain it. Doubtless when greatly you 
 receive, you greatly give ; and from Georgina I had 
 received so much. Women are no less wonderful 
 because a man does not understand them. I have 
 never understood them at all, perhaps because they 
 know so little about themselves. But Georgina had 
 been very wonderful to me. So much had she 
 made herself one with the interests of my life, 
 that at times I would feel as if in her, I were look- 
 ing on at myself ; could almost criticise my actions, 
 passing judgment upon them from those very 
 things she did herself. 
 
 "5
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "My dear," she has sometimes said to me, "I 
 have done such and such a thing." 
 
 "How did you do it?" I would ask and, in her 
 answer, see myself as clearly as if it had been a 
 mirror to my mind. 
 
 "There you are, my friend," I have often said 
 to myself; "that is you, whether you like it or not 
 now what do you think of yourself?" 
 
 Over the matter of Hodgins, the gardener, I 
 learnt a thousand times how small and petty my 
 prejudices were. When she did not give way to 
 hers, I could see how miserably I had given way 
 to mine myself. This is the miracle which love 
 can make between a man and a woman. God is 
 Love it were the same to say that God is Under- 
 standing. We often knew, each of us, what the 
 other was going to say. I know she read my 
 thoughts as easily as I could think them. Some 
 little weakness and how many we all of us have 
 and I would see her eyes turn away rather than 
 look at me, rather than let me know she had seen. 
 A thousand times I have not recognised it was a 
 weakness until the moment when I saw the turning 
 of her head. 
 
 There, you see, I have tried; you see also how 
 116
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 completely I have failed. I cannot explain what 
 it was that was taken from me on the day that 
 Georgina died, but something of me was laid at 
 rest when they threw those spadefuls of earth into 
 her grave. 
 
 Now all that remains of me, I see in Diana's 
 eyes. Slowly through these long days of winter 
 we have just left behind, she has begun to be my 
 mirror, too. I am finding again my little weak- 
 nesses as a father where before I found my weak- 
 nesses as a man. Diana is almost nineteen now 
 and already, I know, she feels I am merely a child. 
 
 Only the other morning she reproved me for the 
 untidiness of my study. 
 
 "I use it more than I did," I explained in my 
 defence. "Your mother used to keep it tidy be- 
 fore; but then she occupied it more than I did." 
 
 "Is that a good excuse, Daddy?" said she. 
 
 I sat down in the chair in which Georgina was 
 wont to sit and then Diana put her arms round 
 my neck and kissed me. I felt she was calling me 
 a child then and indeed I am sure she is older and 
 wiser than I. She tells me things about people 
 in the parish which I am certain are quite true and 
 would never have come to me of my own accord. 
 
 117
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 I suppose it is that as we grow older we live 
 the more in the past. Our judgments are of the 
 past; our wisdom an accumulation of experience. 
 
 "She reproved me for the untidiness 
 of my study." 
 
 The new generation is always looking forward; 
 their eyes are forever staring outward and onward. 
 We only look within. They are wiser in the present 
 than we, for we have the wisdom as of little chil- 
 dren, the sum of whose expression is in the past. 
 Surely it is only speech and expression that a 
 118
 
 baby needs to make it tell the wonders of the ages 
 through which it has come. A man grows from 
 infancy to youth and all his wisdom conies from 
 that which lies before him. He nears old age and 
 wisdom is for him in that which lies behind. Then 
 he is a child once more with speech at will to give 
 expression to the generation he has passed. 
 
 Without doubt it is the child who is the wisest 
 of us all, next the youth and last of all the man 
 of years, the man who has lost his sight of the 
 ages which have gone, is blind to all the ages yet 
 to come and has but the little span of his three 
 score years and ten from which to gather wisdom. 
 
 Yes I am sure of it now Diana is wiser than 
 I. Sometimes I see her grey eyes looking out 
 across the garden to the wide acres of cornfield 
 just beyond. She does not see, as I, how much 
 better the hollyhocks have done this year than last ; 
 she does not compare, as I compare, the coming 
 harvest with the wealth of last year's yield. Her 
 eyes are set upon a great futurity which mine have 
 grown too old to see. And one of these days if 
 God wills it when her eyes, too, are growing dim, 
 she will have put forth another life to see yet fur- 
 ther towards the great beyond. 
 9 119
 
 APRIL p
 
 X 
 
 HIS month has opened sadly in our part 
 of the world. The grey days have fol- 
 lowed each other in procession. Scarcely 
 one has gone by without the low clouds 
 breaking in some shower of rain. The 
 first swallow which, in an hour of sun- 
 shine, I saw the day before yesterday, 
 has found a shelter somewhere and will 
 not venture out. I wonder where he has 
 gone. He must regret the blue skies of 
 Africa he has left behind. 
 Until a few days ago the catkins on the nut trees 
 were still hanging to the branches. Diana said 
 they looked like tassels on a mid-Victorian anti- 
 macassar. It will be Diana's grandchildren who 
 will speak of the mid-Victorian era with respect. 
 There is no romance in it to her. Georgina and 
 I both liked anti-macassars. We used to have 
 them on all the chairs in the drawing-room. Then 
 one day Diana came back for her holidays from 
 school and told us they would never do. I re- 
 member the day when Georgina packed them all 
 
 123
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 away into an old chest on the landing. They are 
 there still. 
 
 But Diana was quite right. A few weeks later, 
 
 "Mrs. Smith the wealthiest of 
 our parishioners." 
 
 Mrs. Smith the wealthiest of our parishioners, 
 who is generous, too came to pay a call. 
 
 "I'm glad," said she, "to see you've got rid of 
 your anti-macassars. They give such an old- 
 
 124
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 fashioned air to a room. I hope you have got rid 
 of them," she added. "They haven't gone to the 
 wash have they?" 
 
 We assured her they were no more. But I am 
 certain it was just that old-fashioned air which 
 Georgina loved. It was not old-fashioned really 
 to us. To Diana it was not old-fashioned enough. 
 Anyhow her simile was quite good. The catkins 
 did look just like tassels. It was the tone of voice 
 in which she said it. 
 
 But the Spring this year is very backward. The 
 last year's blossom of clematis is even now still 
 clinging to the hedges. It has grown grey and 
 dusty and spiders' webs are all spun across the 
 flowers. It reminded me in some way when I saw 
 it of Miss Haversham's wedding breakfast that 
 had waited and waited and waited in vain. 
 
 I cannot forget that swallow which I saw three 
 days ago. If I had it in my power I would give 
 such a welcome of sunshine to these intrepid little 
 birds, that face the dangers of their thousand miles 
 to reach once more the home they left last year. 
 
 The idea of that swallow, driven into hiding, 
 compelled to shelter from the cheerless skies directly 
 it arrived, has grown so much in my mind that at 
 
 125
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 morning service today I read the prayer for fair 
 weather. I was sure the farmers would welcome it, 
 and one day of sunshine would mean a lot to the 
 swallow that has come so many miles to its old 
 nesting place beneath my eaves. 
 
 And so I read the prayer that God would send 
 us such weather as that we might receive the fruits 
 of the earth in due season, wondering as I read it, 
 whether the thoughts which were in my mind 
 could justify the use of such words as those. 
 
 After service, while I was changing my surplice 
 in the vestry, I heard the voice of Mr. Bumstead, 
 our market gardener, as he was on his way home 
 from church through the graveyard. 
 
 "Blame parson !" said he. "What's 'e want to go 
 prayin' for fine weather when those fields of mine 
 be fair dried wi' all the gravel underneath 'em. 
 I never said Amen to anythin' he asked for, but I 
 just whips out my prayer-book and while he was 
 readin' the prayer for fine weather, danged if I 
 didn't read the prayer for rain. An' what's more, 
 I got it finished and had my Amen out afore 
 his'n." 
 
 I told Diana about this at dinner. I told it her 
 in all seriousness because it seemed perhaps to me 
 
 126
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 that in the selfishness of my thoughts I had not 
 been guided to the right. 
 
 She looked at me for a moment and then, with 
 a twinkle in her eye, she leant across the table and 
 held my hand as I was helping myself to salt. 
 
 "Say a prayer for local showers, Daddy," said 
 she. 
 
 Now can there be any doubt about it? Diana is 
 wiser than I.
 
 APRIL ii
 
 ODAY there were newcomers to 
 Bramlingham. The Orchard 
 Farm next to us has been sold 
 and this morning the new ar- 
 rivals took possession. They 
 are named Tregenna and must 
 be of the west country Cornish 
 most probably. There is a 
 father and mother, a son and 
 daughter. The daughter is 
 pretty, but not well dressed. The son is to farm 
 the two hundred acres in training for greater ven- 
 tures in California, where his uncle has large prop- 
 erty. The mother is dowdy and wears black. I 
 have heard nothing of the father. My informant 
 in all these matters is Diana. She has been in the 
 garden most of the morning and our wall, facing 
 the south, overlooks a portion of the garden of 
 the Orchard Farm. 
 
 Feeling afraid that she might have been inquisi- 
 tive, I asked her how she had learnt all these things 
 so soon.
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "I was pruning the ramblers, Daddy," said she, 
 "on the south wall. I saw them in their garden." 
 
 "But the ramblers should have been pruned last 
 month," said I. 
 
 "They were," she replied. "I was only pretend- 
 ing they didn't know. I kept getting down and 
 moving the ladder. Their furniture's all modern. 
 It must look awful in that lovely old house. I 
 don't like people without taste; it's as necessary as 
 good manners. Little Miss Chester down in the 
 village with her old china and those Chippendale 
 things she has makes up for all her abrupt- 
 ness. She's really nice at heart that's what 
 you are if you have good taste. People with 
 good manners and bad taste are only super- 
 ficially nice. One day you'll find out they're horrid 
 at heart." 
 
 I am sure I don't know where Diana has learnt 
 all this. She evidently has made up her mind to 
 disapprove of the Tregennas. 
 
 Now I am wondering if there is any truth in 
 what she says. Has taste really become as essential 
 as good manners? When first Georgina and I 
 were married, I am afraid we thought more of the 
 comfort of our little house; comfort that was not 
 
 132
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 luxury, but certainly comfort that was ease. It 
 was only after Diana had been to school in the 
 south that we first heard any mention of this word 
 taste. 
 
 In this, I have no doubt, Diana and her genera- 
 tion will find that they are wrong. Mrs. Tregenna 
 for all her dowdiness will prove to be a generous 
 and good-hearted soul; the modern furniture, too, 
 will be comfortable and homely enough when 
 Diana discovers a friendship with the pretty but 
 ill-dressed daughter. 
 
 In the high trees beyond the spinney, while I 
 was out for my walk this morning, I heard the 
 hay-bird for the first time this year. In the text- 
 books they call it the willow-warbler, but the popular 
 name of hay-bird seems far more suitable to me. 
 In the first place I have never seen this little creature 
 in a willow tree in my life. His hunting ground 
 for those insects which make his daily food is in 
 the trees that border on the edge of the meadows 
 and cornfields and then again his nest is built of 
 hay. 
 
 When therefore Diana, who had accompanied 
 me, stopped, listening to his song, and asked me 
 what bird it was, I told her it was the hay-bird. 
 
 133
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "Listen carefully," said I. "He always sings the 
 same twenty or thirty notes over and over again, 
 
 / 
 
 "Diana stopped, listening to his song." 
 
 but you never get tired of hearing them. There 
 is a new freshness to them every time." 
 
 We could see him high above us, flying from one 
 branch to another, the olive-green of. his plumage 
 
 134
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 making it somewhat difficult for us sometimes to 
 distinguish him amongst the leaves. 
 
 "It sounds," said Diana presently, "it sounds just 
 as if he were going to begin a story, a once-upon-a- 
 time story, and then when he gets as far as telling 
 where the princess lives, he stops." 
 
 No one could have described the song of the 
 hay-bird better than that. I looked at her and 
 smiled at the fertility of her imagination. 
 
 "Don't you like his song then?" I asked. 
 
 "Love it," said she. "I think it's sweet." 
 
 "But doesn't it annoy you when he stops?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "It must be his manner then," said I. "He has 
 the bad taste not to finish his story, but he does it 
 with such good manners that you like him in spite 
 of it all." 
 
 She twisted me round and made me look her in 
 the face. 
 
 "Daddy," said she, "I'm not going to like the 
 Tregennas." 
 
 10
 
 APRIL 17
 
 HIS was Georgina's birthday. 
 Had she lived, she would have 
 been fifty-one today. After 
 breakfast this morning I went 
 up to the bedroom where she 
 died. We keep the room locked 
 up. No one has used it since 
 her death. Turning the key as 
 quietly as I could, for I did not 
 wish Diana to know that I was 
 there, I entered and closed the 
 door after me. 
 
 Nothing had been said at 
 breakfast with reference to what day it was. I al- 
 most hoped that perhaps Diana had forgotten. It 
 would not exactly be like her to do so. There is a 
 very gentle side of her nature which does not admit 
 of forgetfulness in such things as this. But this 
 gentleness is only to be seen occasionally. In 
 general you would confess her worthy of her name. 
 There is all the element of adventure in her soul. 
 
 This morning, however, I noticed that gentle- 
 ness and thought how like Georgina she had grown. 
 
 139
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 She had seen to it that we had a fish-pie for break- 
 fast and this is a dish I like as well as any. There 
 were hot rolls, too, and when she handed me my 
 tea she smiled and said, "God bless you." 
 
 Yet nothing was said of Georgina's birthday. I 
 made sure she had forgotten it and once, as I looked 
 
 at the chair my wife was wont to occupy at meals, 
 I turned away quickly with the feeling that Diana's 
 eyes were watching me. This was not so ; in fact 
 her eyes, completely in the opposite direction, were 
 gazing far across the broad fields of the Orchard 
 Farm. 
 
 So I felt confident that I would not be dis- 
 140
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 turbed and, having listened for a moment at the 
 door to make certain that she was downstairs, I 
 went across to the window, drew aside the cur- 
 tains and raised it as high as it would go. 
 
 With the sound of all the birds in the garden, 
 with the song of a lark lifted high above the 
 meadows, sprinkling its music which fell like 
 tinkling bells into the silence of the room, it was 
 indeed as if with the opening of that window I 
 had let the spirit of Georgina come back, just as on 
 that day in summer of last year I had opened the 
 window to let it speed away to God. 
 
 It must have been an hour I sat there, thinking 
 most times of her, of our days together in Bram- 
 lingham, our years together at St. Margaret's in the 
 East End. Sometimes the voice of a chiff-chaff 
 trilling his two unvaried notes, sometimes the 
 song of a white-throat in the garden would distract 
 my mind. I have loved these birds from child- 
 hood, longer even than I have loved Georgina, but 
 what I wrote of them in this note-book last year, 
 I would still maintain to be true. I should miss the 
 song of the blackcap were he never to return to our 
 garden, but in time the prolongation of his absence 
 would diminish my regret. This will never be so 
 
 141
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 with the absence of Georgina. My heart grows 
 fonder of her as the days go by and there is no 
 certain promise of her return. 
 
 Yet perhaps this is because there are times, and 
 often, when it seems to me she has never really 
 gone at all. A feeling of her presence still remains. 
 I think that that is why I close this room, to foster 
 some half-formed belief that she is with us now. 
 As I entered the room this morning and saw the 
 bed on which she had died, it came back swiftly 
 to my mind that she was dead, but when I opened 
 the window to the world outside and let the singing 
 of the birds and all the air of Spring come in once 
 more, she came to life again. That hour it seemed 
 I sat and talked with her. 
 
 And then at last the door opened and she was 
 gone again. I turned round. It was Diana. She 
 came across the room at once and knelt beside my 
 chair. 
 
 "Daddy," she said, "you're only making yourself 
 unhappy." 
 
 I shook my head, but she would have it so. 
 
 "You're only allowing yourself to remember 
 things," she went on. "Don't! I knew you would 
 because today was Mother's birthday." 
 
 142
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 So she had remembered. Perhaps she was look- 
 ing at me after all. 
 
 Then she put both hands on my shoulders and, 
 as is her habit when she needs my full attention, 
 turned me round to face her eyes. 
 
 "Aren't I any good?" she asked. "Don't I help 
 at all? Tell me if there's anything in which I'm 
 lacking and I'll try to make it good." 
 
 "Just be yourself, my dear," said I. That was 
 the first time I had called her so. "I wouldn't have 
 you changed for the ransom of a king. I'm not 
 unhappy so long as I've got you." 
 
 "Very well then, Daddy, listen," said she. "I 
 promise you that I'll never leave you no you're 
 
 not to say a word " and she put her hand across 
 
 my mouth and I remember now it was verbena I 
 smelt; she had been picking it "I'm never going 
 to leave you never!" 
 
 And I have written this in my note-book so that 
 it may remind me in her wildest moments how 
 gentle Diana can be.
 
 APRIL 18
 
 unfortunate incident has occurred, 
 one which I fear will embarrass the 
 relationship with our next-door neigh- 
 bours. If we had already called and 
 shown the friendliness of our disposi- 
 tion, which I certainly feel, it would 
 not have been so difficult. But inten- 
 tionally I have deferred our first visit 
 until such time as I thought they would 
 be comfortably settled. Now this un- 
 fortunate affair has happened to strain the making 
 of friendly relations and, instead of calling as a 
 visitor, my first intentions must be those of a peace- 
 maker. 
 
 It appears they have employed a boy to frighten 
 away the birds in the cherry orchard by tapping on 
 the back of an old tea-tray. He sits on the ground 
 beneath one of the trees in the middle of the orchard 
 and, with the tray between his legs, pursues the 
 monotonous beating of his drum from early morn- 
 ing until the evening comes when no bird will search 
 for food. 
 
 It annoyed me a little at first, the sound was so 
 
 147
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 persistent and so unvaried. But after a time, I 
 think both Diana and I began to like it. There was 
 something primitive in the sight of that boy, seated 
 beneath the cherry trees over-burdened with the 
 weight of their snow, rattling this barbaric tune on 
 his old kettledrum. We both agreed that it was the 
 most humane method of keeping the birds away. 
 
 I think Diana was even favourably impressed 
 with the Tregennas on this account, but the im- 
 pression did not last for long. This morning, as I 
 was in the garden, I heard the sound of voices in 
 heated altercation. At that distance I could not 
 distinguish what was being said, but I made sure 
 at least that one voice was Diana's. Accordingly 
 I walked down the little lane between the nut- 
 hedges and looked over the five-barred gate that 
 gave entrance to the cherry orchard. 
 
 By then the voices had ceased, and, as I came 
 within sight, I saw the young Mr. Tregenna raising 
 his hat as he walked away from Diana who was 
 standing by the boy who beats the tea-tray under the 
 trees. He was holding the tray in one hand and, 
 with the knuckles of the other, was rubbing first 
 one eye and then the next. 
 
 I called to Diana. She came across to the gate 
 148
 
 77t<? 
 
 Bullfinch
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 carrying a dead bullfinch in the palm of her open 
 hand. I half guessed what had happened. These 
 little birds rapaciously devour the blossom of the 
 cherry trees in Spring. So far from being un- 
 common in this country, they are to be found in all 
 fruit districts in great numbers. With their strong 
 beaks they nip off the flower buds and will destroy 
 a whole crop in embryo if left unmolested. This 
 makes cause enough against them for the farmer, 
 but I knew well enough the feelings of Diana at 
 the sight of that little creature in its glorious red, 
 grey and purple-black plumage. She cannot bear to 
 see any animal dead. I remember the tears coming 
 thickly into her eyes when she saw a swallow that 
 had beaten itself to death against a window pane 
 in the gardening shed. 
 
 "What has happened?" I asked as she came up. 
 
 It appeared to be much as I had expected. The 
 boy had brought a catapult with him, concealed in 
 his pocket. To vary the monotony of beating on 
 his tray, he had taken shots at the birds which came 
 within reach of his aim. By some mischance this 
 bullfinch had been hit and had fallen wounded to 
 the ground. 
 
 When Diana found him, it was lying on the grass 
 11 151
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 by his side still alive. I can imagine the torrent 
 of her anger at such a sight as that. Without the 
 slightest hesitation she set to and gave that boy 
 
 "To vary the monotony . . . he 
 had taken shots at the birds" 
 
 as many sound blows across the head as I have no 
 doubt he will remember for a few weeks; and 
 was thus engaged when young Mr. Tregenna 
 came up. 
 
 152
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "You must excuse my interruption," said he, "but 
 may I ask what you're doing?" 
 
 "I'm giving this boy a beating," said Diana, "for 
 shooting that bullfinch." 
 
 "Then possibly you don't know," replied Mr. 
 Tregenna and I am sure it must have been his 
 quietness of voice which irritated Diana the more, 
 "but this boy is employed by me to keep away 
 the birds from the cherry blossom. He's only 
 doing the duty he's paid for. Of course he's not 
 expected to kill the birds, but personally I quite 
 approve of his having killed a bullfinch a dozen 
 of those little beggars would strip this orchard 
 bare." 
 
 "But he hasn't killed it!" explained Diana. 
 "That's the brutality of it ! It's quivering still and 
 if you had any feeling for animals at all, you'd kill 
 it at once." 
 
 I suppose he must have smiled at the intensity 
 of her feelings, for here, as she recounted it to me, 
 Diana became almost incoherent with anger at the 
 remembrance of it all. 
 
 "Did he kill it?" I asked. 
 
 "Yes after I'd said that if he didn't do it I 
 should have to do it myself. I told him, too, that 
 
 'S3
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 he ought to get rid of the boy at once; that if I 
 had anybody in my service who was cruel to animals 
 I should dismiss them at a moment's notice." 
 
 "But you had no right to tell him what he ought 
 to do, Diana." 
 
 "I can't help that!" she exclaimed. "I'd dismiss 
 the little brute at once. I hope I hurt him." 
 
 It was no good trying then to persuade her to a 
 more charitable frame of mind. In fact I must 
 admit that when I saw the dead bullfinch lying in 
 her hand, I felt greatly in sympathy with all she 
 had said. Georgina would have done just the same. 
 And for myself, I would never kill a bird. They 
 have plenty of dangers to threaten them without the 
 hand of man. There are the long cold days of 
 winter when all their food is covered by the snow. 
 A man, it seems, only notices the habits of birds 
 when they affect his crops. He never thinks 
 of the inestimable service they are to him when 
 the ground is barren and the harvest has been 
 gathered in. 
 
 I said nothing, therefore, but took her arm and 
 we walked back to the house. Just as we reached 
 the summer house, she stopped and her fingers 
 tightened on my hand as she listened. The boy had 
 
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 begun beating on his tea-tray once more. I saw 
 a look in her face. 
 
 "I shall bury the bullfinch in the garden," said 
 she, "and put up a little gravestone to remember 
 it by."
 
 APRIL 21
 
 'FTER this incident in the cherry orchard 
 I thought it best to call upon the 
 Tregennas as soon as possible and this 
 morning told Diana that I thought we 
 had better go. She said nothing. 
 "You'll come won't you?" said I. 
 "I can't," she replied. "I'm going 
 into the village to see Miss Chester, 
 She's in bed with a cold." 
 
 There was time no doubt for her to 
 have performed both duties, but having seen this 
 very morning a small wooden cross under one of 
 the apple trees in the kitchen garden and guessing 
 the memory of that to which it was raised, I did 
 not press her to accompany me. At half past four 
 then I went alone. 
 
 The low-ceilinged drawing-room of the old 
 orchard farmhouse certainly does not look well with 
 modern furniture. Up to a certain point, Diana 
 and her generation are quite right, good taste is a 
 pleasant characteristic. I think, perhaps, the father 
 and the mother are responsible for the modernity 
 of the furniture. He has been a brewer, now re- 
 
 159
 
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 tired and devoted to the future interests of his son. 
 But he has ideas of his own, and those ideas he 
 evidently insists on seeing carried out. Mrs. 
 Tregenna is silent and obedient to all his wishes. 
 They are both most estimable people. 
 
 We sat over tea and talked. Mr. Tregenna told 
 me how his son was managing the farm for three 
 years in preparation for his greater venture the 
 other side of the world. In three years' time he 
 was to set off for California and then they would 
 let the land, remaining in the farmhouse them- 
 selves and retaining such acres of land as was re- 
 quired for their own needs. 
 
 Young Mr. Tregenna has been through one of 
 the agricultural colleges. This is his first attempt 
 at the actual management of a farm. 
 
 I gathered all this throughout the conversation 
 during which nothing was mentioned of his en- 
 counter with Diana. 
 
 It was just as I had risen to my feet, saying that 
 I must go, that the door of the drawing-room opened 
 and he entered. His face is open and honest. I 
 liked the grip of his hand. 
 
 "Must you go now?" said he. 
 
 I said I had been there for full an hour. 
 1 60
 
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 "Well I'll walk to the gate with you," said he, 
 and in the definite tone of his voice I felt that his 
 intention was other than mere politeness. He had 
 something to say to me and it needed no very 
 shrewd guess of mine to imagine what it was. 
 
 For the first few steps we walked in silence and 
 then he came out with it. 
 
 "I hope your daughter didn't think me rude," 
 said he, "over that little affair of the bullfinch. To 
 tell you the truth, until I saw you at the gate, I 
 didn't realise who she was." 
 
 "Oh, no," said I at once. "She didn't think you 
 rude." 
 
 "But she thought me cruel." 
 
 I smiled. He would have it that she thought him 
 something. So then I explained how fond we both 
 are of birds. 
 
 "Not too fond," I added, "but perhaps a little 
 foolishly so. Bullfinches are great pets of ours." 
 
 "You haven't a cherry orchard," said he. 
 
 "No," said I, "but we make red and black currant 
 jam every year from the fruit out of our garden." 
 
 "Then how do you manage?" he asked. 
 
 I told him how I tied straw ropes round the goose- 
 berry and the currant bushes to alter their appear- 
 
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 ance, at the same time having strings across the 
 garden with little pieces of paper attached that 
 twirled around with the breath of the slightest wind. 
 
 "Then," I added, "I put some peas in the little 
 lane next to your orchard. I find they are sufficient 
 attraction for the bullfinches and serve to satisfy 
 their appetites before ever they get into the garden. 
 They used to disbud my fruit trees terribly until I 
 did that." 
 
 We had passed the gate by this time and he still 
 walked on by my side towards the vicarage. 
 
 "I'm afraid a farmer can't waste time over such 
 elaborate precautions as those," he said presently, 
 "but your daughter was quite right to smack the 
 boy's head if he was torturing the bird. I have 
 no actual evidence that he was and so I could 
 scarcely adopt the extreme measure she suggested." 
 
 "You mean of dismissing him?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Oh you mustn't take any notice of that," I 
 said at once. "Diana's very impulsive. She didn't 
 stop to think what she was saying." 
 
 "Diana's her name," said he. 
 
 I nodded and he repeated it. He probably knew 
 someone so called. 
 
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 "And now I suppose," he went on with a smile, 
 "she thinks me the villain in the piece." 
 
 "She'll tell you that she doesn't herself," said I 
 laughing. "Here she comes along the road now," 
 and wishing that peace should be made with our 
 neighbours, we passed by the vicarage gate to meet 
 her as she returned from her visit to Miss Chester. 
 
 I could not help smiling as I saw Diana's cheeks 
 grow red when she realised the inevitable meeting. 
 
 "Mr. Tregenna imagines," said I, "that you think 
 him a villain because of what happened the other 
 morning." 
 
 "I don't think I have thought about it at all," 
 said Diana, and there came a look into her face 
 which I had never seen before. It must have been 
 because that was not quite the truth. That little 
 cross of wood under the apple tree was proof of it. 
 But women often say things like this. I have never 
 discovered why, yet often I have noticed it. 
 
 Still, whether it were the truth or not, it had a 
 peculiar effect upon the young man beside me. He 
 held out his hand to me and saying something to 
 the effect that he must not intrude further upon 
 my time, he raised his hat to Diana and set back 
 down the road. 
 
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 "You have offended him, Diana," said I. 
 
 "Havel?" she replied. 
 
 "And it was not quite the truth," I added. 
 "Surely you must have thought about it when you 
 put that little wooden cross under the apple tree." 
 
 "Well I sha'n't think about it any more," said 
 she. 
 
 I have put all this into my note-book, because it 
 has seemed to me a strange example of how women 
 form hasty dislikes and for such slight reasons. I 
 think myself that he is a nice, honest fellow. But 
 this was not really what I had intended to write 
 about. I wanted to record the fact that I heard 
 a wren this morning singing as brave a song as I 
 have ever listened to. Looking out into the garden, 
 I saw him seated on a low branch of the quickset 
 hedge, while on a branch near by his mate sat 
 listening enraptured. 
 
 I wish it were always Spring.
 
 APRIL 25
 
 HIS morning I rose early and went for 
 a walk into the woods. Certain things 
 there are, which are characteristic of 
 certain days, which strike the note of 
 the seasons. There was a sharp frost 
 last night. When I set out the ground 
 was white, but in less than half an hour 
 a warm sun had melted it. Only the 
 spiders' webs, spun in the gaps of the 
 hedges, retained the white spangling of 
 the hoar. If I had been asked then 
 what were the characteristics of that morning at 
 that time of Spring, I should have said the tum- 
 bling flight of the peewit and the smell of a woods- 
 man's fire. 
 
 For a long while I stood at the edge of the wood 
 watching these birds as with winnowing wings they 
 circled about the fields, uttering that unmusical cry 
 which has given them the name of peewit by which 
 most commonly they are known. Lapwing is the 
 name I like better, for it seems to me that their 
 peculiar flight is more characteristic of them than 
 their cry; and plover, which is the more generic 
 12 167
 
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 term, I like not at all. The delicacy of the plover's 
 egg, demanding as it does that nests should be rifled 
 year after year, appeals to me only in the sense of 
 its cruelty. It is only once a year that they attempt 
 to raise a brood, and because the egg is a delicacy 
 makes no excuse in my mind for its destruction. 
 
 I remember a man once saying to me : 
 
 "Cricket may be an excellent game, but you have 
 to be a first-class player to enjoy it. If my side 
 goes in first and I make a duck, the rest of the 
 day is spoilt for me so far as any enjoyment goes." 
 
 Now if a man feels that for one day about a 
 sport, what must a bird feel for the rest of the 
 year when one of the first instincts of its nature 
 has been frustrated? The bird doesn't feel, is the 
 answer of the man as he dips his plover's egg in 
 celery salt and carries it to his mouth. 
 
 But this is a theory I most vigorously would 
 deny. If you can prove that a bird, or any animal, 
 has feelings at all, you must admit that in elemental 
 matters where the first instincts of its nature are 
 concerned, those feelings will most be seen. Now 
 it is not good enough to say that a bird has feelings 
 of hunger. These may be merely physical, convey- 
 ing no impression to the brain. But you must con- 
 
 168
 
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 fess that a bird has feelings of fear. It can be 
 frightened, and fright is less connected with the 
 body than the mind. So, if the instinct of self- 
 preservation, which I am prepared to admit is 
 the strongest with which Nature has provided her 
 creatures, gives rise to feelings of fear in the mind, 
 then must not the instinct of reproduction which 
 is nearly as great, be accountable for feelings almost 
 as strong as fear. But a bird will even conquer 
 fear for the preservation of its young. Larks and 
 thrushes are well known in this respect and so I 
 argue that it must be a higher mental activity which 
 rises to such an effort, and as such should be re- 
 spected. 
 
 This is no sentimental notion in my mind, but 
 a decision arrived at by logical processes alone. 
 Therefore, believing that birds do feel and suffer at 
 the deprivation of their young, how could I with 
 complacency eat a plover's egg? How could any- 
 one if they believed the same as I? The luxury of 
 food is the last necessity for which a man should 
 seek. Yet luxury, now-a-days, for many is the only 
 necessity they know. 
 
 One of these days, perhaps, it will occur to the 
 King to refuse the first plover's egg that the spring- 
 
 169
 
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 time brings him and then the fancied delicacy which 
 it is not longer the fashion to enjoy will become a 
 tasteless thing. The gentleman who is so expert 
 at argument will cork up the bottle of his celery salt 
 
 The Woodsman 
 
 and, as he helps himself to foie gras, will say that 
 after all it was rather hard on the plover. 
 
 It was the smell of the woodsman's fire that drew 
 me on further in my walk. At last by the pale blue 
 
 170
 
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 mist of the smoke and the damp, burnt smell of the 
 crackling faggots, I found him in a little hollow 
 waiting for his morning meal. His wife was with 
 him. They had both slept under the shelter of a 
 great beech tree that night and now she was cook- 
 ing his breakfast. 
 
 I stood by and talked to him about the weather 
 and the prospects of the year, watching her as she 
 chopped up onions and shallots, putting them one 
 by one as she prepared them into the pot that sim- 
 mered appetisingly on the fire. The smell of the 
 stew reached my nostrils. It made me feel so 
 hungry that at last I asked him what it contained. 
 
 "A few bits of bacon, sir, a little potato onions, 
 shallots " 
 
 He paused trying to think what else. 
 
 "And little bits of all sorts, sir," said his wife 
 looking up. 
 
 "Well," said I, "I've never smelt anything that 
 gave me a better appetite." 
 
 "You're hungry for your breakfast, sir no 
 doubt," suggested the woodsman. "There's nothing 
 like an appetite to make the simplest things seem 
 tasty." 
 
 In a way it was an obvious remark, yet it brought 
 171
 
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 new things to my mind when I thought back to the 
 plover's eggs. 
 
 Perhaps one day the first plover's egg will arrive 
 for the King when he has an appetite then, instead 
 of accepting it, he will order some little bits of all 
 sorts.
 
 MAY 27
 
 HAVE always felt that Diana was no 
 ordinary girl and have as often rebuked 
 myself for so thinking. With an only 
 child, parents are apt to be warped in 
 judgment, eager to find some virtue 
 which redounds to the credit of them- 
 selves. Yet if to the third and fourth 
 generation the sins of the fathers descend upon 
 the children, then perhaps it is excusable in a parent 
 when he is quick to find a virtue in his child. 
 
 Nevertheless, I have guarded well against my 
 pride in this matter and, this morning, was re- 
 warded by the discovery of a talent in my daughter 
 which fills me with such feelings of pleasure as I 
 can make no effort to disguise. 
 Diana has taken to writing verses. 
 The sense of poetry in her, I feel sure, she must 
 inherit from Georgina. True, in the keeping of 
 this little note-book, I have made use of my pen, 
 but it has been no more than in record of the daily 
 thoughts and observations which all this wonderful 
 countryside has brought me. I can claim no virtue 
 
 175
 
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 of expression in these, for though Georgina never 
 used her pen at all even in writing letters she 
 found it difficult to apply her mind yet she spoke 
 of such thoughts to me as could only have come 
 from one deeply sensitive to the beauty of life 
 about her. 
 
 How strange then it is that Diana should have 
 inherited this from her mother when, ever since 
 I was a young man up at Oxford, it has been my 
 ambition to make some slight contribution to the 
 literature of the country in which I was born. The 
 need of patient application, a certain characteristic 
 dilatoriness, too, perhaps, has always stood in the 
 way of the accomplishment of my desire. I am 
 now fifty-nine and I suppose my pen will scarcely 
 ever do more for me than make these occasional 
 idle jottings in an idle book. 
 
 It is left to Diana with the inheritance of her 
 mother's gift of seeing the beauty in life about 
 her, it is left to her to make that contribution to 
 literature to which I shall never attain. This is 
 no idle supposition. From the verses I saw this 
 morning and, judging them with such impartiality 
 as a father is capable of towards his child, I am 
 certain that she will create something of repute in 
 
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 the world of letters, something that cannot be en- 
 tirely overlooked by even the severest judges. 
 
 I came across these verses by chance. In her 
 bedroom she has a small, old oak bureau, ostensi- 
 bly, so she has informed me, at which to write her 
 letters. It was there I found the paper on which 
 the verses were written. Soon after breakfast, 
 whilst she was attending to household duties in the 
 kitchen, I had occasion to go up to her room. 
 
 I have discovered, during the last few days, the 
 presence of a leaf -cutter bee in the garden and have 
 been curious to find its nest. Leaf after leaf on the 
 flowers in our borders has shown me that semi- 
 circular excision, so clearly cut as to be unmistakably 
 the work of this inimitable craftsman. Some days 
 went by before I succeeded in catching sight of the 
 little creature at its work. Each morning when I 
 went out into the garden after breakfast, there were 
 fresh traces of its labour. Today I had my reward. 
 On a petal of one of the first early roses that are 
 in bloom on the standards, I saw the leaf-cutter 
 bee making as neat a job of its task as any cutter 
 in a Bond Street tailor's shop. With its scissor-like 
 jaws it was snipping out the semi-circular pattern 
 it needs from the centre of a gorgeous red petal. 
 
 177
 
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 Until that moment I had thought the only material 
 they used was leaves. But in the country there may 
 well be something new to learn with every day that 
 comes. 
 
 I stood perfectly still until the bee had finished. 
 They are timid creatures so unlike the honey-bee 
 in this and dislike disturbance at their work. As 
 soon as the last fraction was severed from the petal, 
 it caught the piece in its mouth or with its legs, 
 
 178
 
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 at that distance I could not be certain which and 
 flew away to its nest. The heavy burden was so 
 much an impediment that its flight was slow 
 enough for me to follow it. Without hesitation, it 
 made directly for a hole in the bricks below Diana's 
 window. Without any delay I went back into the 
 house and hurried up to her bedroom. Leaning 
 far out, I could just see the little creature at work. 
 
 With infinite care, yet never pausing, the petal 
 was bent into a curve, then passed into a burrow in 
 such a manner as that the one to follow might fit 
 into its proper place. As soon as this operation was 
 finished, it flew away again. I waited at the win- 
 dow, timing it by my watch until it should return. 
 In little more than three minutes it was back once 
 more, this time with a piece of roseleaf. Already 
 the nest was assuming its thimble-like shape and 
 into this, when all is complete, the egg is dropped 
 together with the bread of the bees, that mixture of 
 pollen and honey which is their household food. 
 
 It was when I had concluded my observations 
 and come back into the room that I saw the sheet 
 of verses lying out on Diana's desk. It did not 
 occur to me to regard them as private. I picked 
 them up and read. 
 
 179
 
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 Between the May and the Rose, 
 
 With the Summer just begun, 
 When the highest leaf on the poplar knows 
 
 The warmth of the morning sun; 
 
 Between the May and the Rose, 
 
 With the broken buds aglow, 
 When the lark uplifted to Heaven knows 
 
 The all that he'll ever know; 
 
 Between the May and the Rose, 
 When our touching hands are one, 
 
 We shall know what God in His Heaven knows, 
 With the Summer just begun. 
 
 As soon as I had read them once, I read them 
 again. "I must not," I said to myself "I must not 
 let my judgment be biased because this is Diana's 
 work. Pride is no critic and should have no say 
 in a matter like this. Then what," I asked myself, 
 "would you think of it were you to hear that it 
 had been copied from the work of a well known 
 poet?" 
 
 I was compelled to confess that I thought it 
 really fine. 
 
 Surely it cannot be a copy of some poet she ad- 
 mires! Would she not have written his name be- 
 low? 
 
 1 80
 
 MAY 28
 
 AM glad I was right. Diana wrote 
 the verses. I spoke to her about 
 them last evening at supper and, in 
 the confusion of admitting their 
 authorship, the blood came warm- 
 ly into her cheeks as though she 
 were ashamed of them. 
 
 "There is nothing to be ashamed 
 of, my dear girl," said I. 
 
 "But I had not intended anyone 
 to see them," she replied. 
 
 "Well, I'm very glad I did," I returned. "I don't 
 want to pretend that they're anything really won- 
 derful, but they certainly show promise of your 
 being able to write good poetry. They're simple; 
 there's a certain amount of observation, a distinct 
 feeling for the beauty of things about them. I'd 
 even go so far as to say that it is a long time since 
 I've read anything I liked better." 
 
 I said no more than that. It would be a pity, 
 I thought, if I praised her so much as to give her 
 too exalted a notion of what she had done. So I 
 kept my feelings to myself. 
 13 183
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "What made you think of writing them?" I 
 asked. 
 
 She became confused once more and said some- 
 thing to the effect that she supposed they were 
 very foolish ; that she had been reading some poetry 
 and had probably tried to imitate it. 
 
 I liked this modesty in her and pursued the 
 matter no farther. 
 
 "She'll write something else soon," I said to 
 myself. A gift like that is not meant to lie idle be- 
 cause the owner of it is consumed with modesty. 
 
 We shall know what God in His Heaven knows, 
 With the Summer just begun. 
 
 There is so much promise to me in those two 
 lines that I have said them over and again to 
 myself. I said them this morning as I looked out 
 of my bedroom window. What a time of the year ! 
 "Between the May and the Rose, with the Summer 
 just begun." It was this time of all that Georgina 
 loved the best. She was just beginning to see the 
 fruits of her pruning the roses were in bud.
 
 JUNE 10
 
 HIS is the day on which Georgina died. 
 I have opened wide the window in her 
 bedroom and all the sounds of Summer 
 now come are filling the silent room. 
 Death cannot be the end. How could the 
 Summer be with us again and Georgina 
 really be gone? She was more to me 
 than a thousand Summers.
 
 JUNE 12
 
 r 
 
 y CANNOT truthfully say that I believe in 
 V\, fairies, but the fairy story is a thing I 
 
 m V/ 
 
 ./. (\ feel sure the world could ill do without. 
 f\ 
 
 On a shelf in the old nursery which has 
 
 now become a sewing-room, stand all the 
 books of fairy tales which Diana read 
 when she was a child. I believe she 
 sometimes reads them still. 
 
 I am no high-churchman, yet I have 
 always believed in symbols, especially for 
 the minds of children. Unless you train 
 the eye to an ideal of beauty, it is apt to see 
 nothing but ugliness when it comes to know the 
 thing that is real. I cannot think why this should 
 be so and it is with much regret that I admit it. 
 Perhaps it is the stain of the sin of origin left 
 clinging in the mind and if that be so, then doubly 
 is it the duty of every parent to train in his child 
 the power of seeing beauty everywhere. So, when 
 it comes to the realities in life it will be able to 
 see them in their true proportion. 
 
 I always used to tell Diana, as I myself and many 
 191
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 another has been told, that when the birds lifted 
 up their heads after drinking, it was to give thanks 
 to the Almighty for the quenching of their thirst. 
 For many, many years, I know she believed that 
 
 this was true and then one day, when she was in 
 her teens, she came to me and said : 
 
 "Daddy, when a bird puts back its head after it's 
 been drinking, it's to let the water run down its 
 throat." 
 
 "Yes," said I. 
 
 "You told me it was saying grace, Daddy." 
 
 "Yes," said I. 
 
 192
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "Well it isn't half so nice now that I know it's 
 only the water running down its throat." 
 
 "Would it have been nice at all if you'd known 
 that all along?" I asked her. 
 
 She sat and looked at me for quite a long while 
 and then at last she put out both her hands. 
 
 "I believe old people are very wise," said she. 
 And I was only fifty then. 
 
 I have recalled this little fact because of some- 
 thing that occurred last evening. We have some 
 wealthy neighbours at Cawdlett Park. Young Mr. 
 Fielding has just inherited through his father's 
 death. We went there last night to dinner. 
 
 I knew the old gentleman quite well. He was a 
 stern man ; virtuous and just, honourable and good, 
 but he found no beauty in life and therefore could 
 not teach it to his son. The boy was sent out early 
 into the world and, with little patrimony from his 
 father, had to fight his own way. Two things he 
 did. He lost all touch with the religion in which 
 he had been brought up and he became a socialist. 
 
 Now it seems you must be poor to be a socialist. 
 He had often propounded his theories to me for 
 he had the honesty of his father and did not hesi- 
 tate to tell me that religious worship no longer con- 
 
 193
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 veyed a meaning to his mind. I did not dislike him 
 for that I felt sorry that was all. 
 
 Last evening then I had no little curiosity to see 
 how the sudden change of fortune had operated 
 upon his ideas. We were six at dinner. Young 
 Mr. Tregenna and his sister were there. I know I 
 concealed my smile when to him was given the 
 honour of taking in Diana. Probably no one but 
 I saw the faint flush in her cheeks as she laid her 
 hand on his arm. I know she must have been think- 
 ing of the little wooden cross under the apple tree. 
 
 There was, too, it seemed to me, just a thought 
 of victory in his eye. He looked proud to be him- 
 self, if I can put it in such a way, and indeed he 
 had every good reason. Diana was looking most 
 beautiful. I must not praise her; she is my own 
 daughter. But never have I seen such fine straight 
 limbs or a head set so proudly on such shoulders 
 as her evening dress displayed. I say never, yet 
 there was Georgina, as I knew Georgina first. 
 
 As we were all collected about the table, I began 
 in silence to say my grace to myself when Mr. 
 Fielding looked across at me and said: 
 
 "Vicar, will you say grace ?" 
 
 I hope I did not show surprise, and bending my 
 194
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 head, I repeated the old form such as I have said 
 from childhood : 
 
 "For what we are going to receive, may the Lord 
 make its truly thankful, for Jesus Christ's sake. 
 Amen." 
 
 It was not until after dinner when the ladies had 
 gone that I had the opportunity of asking him why 
 his ideas had changed. 
 
 "What ideas?" said he. 
 
 "Your religious ideas." 
 
 "Oh you mean my asking you to say grace. I 
 always say it at meals myself now." 
 
 "Then they have changed?" I enquired. 
 
 "No no I think just the same, but you see our 
 butler who was here nearly all through my father's 
 time he'd be horrified if we sat down to dinner 
 without saying grace. I do it for him." 
 
 "Do you carry your socialism as far as that?" 
 asked Tregenna. 
 
 "Well I don't think he would be so pleased if I 
 raised his wages instead. You see, I find, now that 
 I've inherited, that you only have real liberty when 
 you're poor. A man struggles to get rich in order 
 to gain or buy his independence and the more money 
 he gets, the more he lavishes it on convention. It's 
 
 195
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 not liberty he's buying. With every fresh sovereign 
 that he makes, he buys another link in the chain of 
 his own slavery. Wealth is the most overrated 
 thing in the whole of this world. It's the most 
 misunderstood. Once upon a time I'd have snapped 
 my fingers in the face of that butler rather than 
 have said grace. I was poor then and I was free." 
 
 Now all of this was very true. At least it seemed 
 so to me. I record no more of what he said be- 
 cause from there he soared into the heights of his 
 socialistic theories and, though no doubt they were 
 interesting, they did not concern me. 
 
 "It all comes," I thought, "of the want of train- 
 ing in youth." Firmly as old Mr. Fielding believed 
 in the forms of his religion, he never told his son 
 that the birds were saying their grace when they 
 lifted their heads. He had never thought that they 
 do anything but let the water trickle down their 
 throats. 
 
 No I believe in fairy tales, and you will not find 
 them in socialism. There must be a prince and 
 there must be a beggar or you would never have 
 a story to read. 
 
 "You all stayed a very long time in the dining- 
 room," said Diana to me as we walked home. 
 
 196
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "Did you find it long?" said I. 
 
 "Oh, no ! I didn't," she replied quickly and then, 
 taking my arm she hummed a little tune as we 
 walked along.
 
 JUNE 14 
 
 14
 
 HAVE often speculated on the fondness 
 shown by robins for the interiors of 
 churches. Scarcely one of the books by 
 the various authorities I have consulted 
 even mentions the fact. The Reverend 
 C. A. Johns alludes to it and with all 
 that he says in a brief reference to the 
 subject, I am in complete agreement. It 
 is undoubtedly for the sake of company 
 that they frequent our places of worship, 
 for I have seldom heard of a robin building its nest 
 inside a church, and it is nearly always at the hour 
 of service they are to be seen there. 
 
 Last evening, the one that has attached himself 
 to our church, flew in through an open window in 
 the chancel and, seating himself upon a pinnacle of 
 the old choir screen, sang with us the Nunc Dimittis. 
 All heads I know were raised from their books, 
 all eyes were turned upon him as he sat there, his 
 throat swelling, his beak wide open as he poured 
 out his glorious notes. Every one must have heard 
 them above the organ, even above the voices in the 
 choir, so shrill and sweet they were. 
 
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 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "Lord, now lettest Thou Thy servant depart in 
 peace, according to Thy word; for mine eyes have 
 seen Thy salvation, which Thou hast prepared be- 
 fore the face of all people." 
 
 It is my habit, well as I know the words of 
 morning and evening prayer, never to look about 
 me, lest my attention might stray. But on this 
 occasion, I could not refrain from watching this 
 little creature or from listening to every note that 
 he uttered. And as I listened, I suppose I must 
 have stopped in my singing, the better to hear him 
 perhaps; perhaps because my voice, never at any 
 time too tuneful, was disturbing in my ears to the 
 beauty of his song. Whatever it was, I became silent 
 and then was slowly made aware that every one 
 else had ceased from singing, too. So intent was 
 my mind upon the robin I was not fully conscious 
 of it until the last voice had stopped and, to the soft 
 notes of the organ, that little bird was singing alone. 
 
 It was only for a moment or so and then the 
 chant was finished. As though suddenly we had all 
 come to our senses, we joined again in singing 
 Amen and, with the cessation of the music, the 
 robin flew up into the rafters and was hidden from 
 sight. 
 
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 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 I glanced at Diana, who sings close beside me 
 in the choir and, may be it was only the light of 
 the dropping sun casting its rays through the west 
 window in the nave, but I thought her eyes were 
 glittering and bright. 
 
 When service was over, I found Diana outside 
 waiting for me and talking to the Tregennas. They 
 were speaking of course about what had occurred. 
 It was, in fact, I am sure, the topic of conversation 
 round every supper table that evening. Young 
 Allan Tregenna, who had come up to meet them 
 as they filed out of church, was being told all about 
 it. We broke up into two parties as we started 
 away from the door. Diana joined him and I came 
 along behind them with the two ladies. 
 
 They asked me if I had ever known anything 
 so strange happen at a service in church before 
 and, as I thought over it, I was compelled to admit 
 I had not. 
 
 "You must have been rather annoyed," said Mrs. 
 Tregenna, "when everyone stopped singing." 
 
 "Why?" I asked her. 
 
 "Well because it interfered with the service." 
 
 "I can't say I thought it did," said I. "I stopped 
 singing myself, but then I don't sing well. Yet 
 
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 had everyone there been singing beautifully, I don't 
 think I should have regretted their silence then." 
 
 Miss Tregenna looked up at me. 
 
 "I know what you mean," said she. 
 
 "Yes," I continued, "there is always the spirit 
 of the thing and the thing itself." 
 
 I often preach my little sermons after church. 
 It is not truly the place for them I know, but some- 
 times when two or three of us are walking back 
 together, I am drawn into talking and many times 
 have found myself giving better expression to things 
 than ever I do in the pulpit. It is again the spirit 
 of the thing, while often in the pulpit it is only the 
 thing itself. I mean no irrevence to the church by 
 that, but a sermon should be a conversation one- 
 sided I admit and in the pulpit I often feel too 
 far away to converse. As we walk home together, 
 it is a different matter, yet it is frequently just as 
 one-sided then. I am sure I talk too much. 
 
 "Well," I went on, "I know we were all singing 
 the Nunc Dimittis and I know that all our hearts 
 were in what we sang. But there was something 
 spontaneous in the voice of that robin, which none 
 of us had got in ours. The habit of prayer, the 
 habit of praise, we have become so used to them 
 
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 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 that often I must pull myself up when I am read- 
 ing or singing to realise the meaning of the words. 
 And in all the religious worship throughout the 
 whole of our country and everywhere where the 
 form of worship only faintly varies, how much of 
 habit do you think there must be in the hymns 
 that are sung and the prayers that are prayed ?" 
 
 I looked at them both, at Mrs. Tregenna on my 
 right at her daughter on my left. They said 
 nothing and I knew that I had brought to their 
 minds the realisation of how their own prayers were 
 often said. 
 
 "There was nothing of habit," I went on pres- 
 ently, "in the way that robin sang. He has sung his 
 song a thousand times, but that is ever the way with 
 birds. A new day and they sing their song afresh 
 as though it were for the first time in their lives. 
 And that is worship that is thankfulness. It must 
 come more than from the ready obedience of the 
 heart; it must come from the full energy of the 
 spirit. You cannot praise God by rote; you must 
 praise Him by inspiration." 
 
 This brought me to my door and I said how sorry 
 I was to inflict another sermon upon them and all 
 in one evening. 
 
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 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 Miss Tregenna shook my hand and said: 
 "I liked the second one best." 
 "Perhaps it was inspired," said I, and then, look- 
 ing about for Diana, I found that she had gone 
 
 "She had gone on down the road 
 with her companion." 
 
 on down the road with her companion. It is a 
 pity they are not friends. 
 
 This morning Diana came down to breakfast, 
 when for some moments I stood looking at her in 
 
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 amazement. I would hardly have recognised her. 
 She has put up her hair. She has become a woman. 
 
 "Oh, my dear," said I involuntarily, for a thou- 
 sand times more than ever did she remind me of 
 Georgina. 
 
 She stood there returning my look while many 
 expressions passed across her eyes. Her cheeks 
 grew pink and then grew pale again; her eyes kept 
 shutting and opening. She smiled and then the 
 smile would die away. At last she could bear my 
 scrutiny no longer. She came and put her arms 
 round my neck and hid my eyes from her. 
 
 "Does it look horrid?" she asked. 
 
 "My dear," said I, and at the back of her neck, 
 which is like a baby's, I kissed her. Her head was 
 hidden on my shoulder. There was no other place 
 to kiss. 
 
 I had news this afternoon that distressed me. 
 Allan Tregenna will have to go out to his uncle's 
 farm in California in three months' time. I have 
 liked that boy and shall miss him when he is gone. 
 
 I asked Diana had she heard of it. She nodded 
 her head. He told her yesterday, it seemed, as they 
 walked back from church. 
 
 207
 
 JUNE 21
 
 PAIR of thrushes that mated last year 
 and built their nest in the densest corner 
 of the quickset hedge, have again mated 
 this and set up house in the heart of a 
 Portugal laurel on the lawn. I have no 
 right to state this as a fact beyond my 
 own convictions, for, so far as I can 
 make out, there is nothing to prove that 
 the same birds do pair one season after 
 another. In most cases, flocking as they do in the 
 Winter, birds change their mates in the Spring. 
 But these two thrushes I make certain in my mind 
 are the same. This is how I know. 
 
 Whenever after a shower I saw the female 
 on the lawn last Summer, she limped, having at 
 some time or another hurt her leg. I readily recog- 
 nised her again. In a garden where the same birds 
 stay year after year, I suppose anyone will accept 
 that as proof conclusive. She at least is the same 
 bird. And he well, I am not quite so certain 
 about him, but last year her mate when the sun 
 was dropping had the habit of sitting on the top- 
 
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 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 most twig of a scarlet may-tree and singing for half 
 an hour together. Now he does just the same this 
 year and so constantly do you see the force of 
 habits in birds that I make sure it is the identical 
 couple come together once more to share the anxiety 
 and responsibilities of the home. 
 
 It gives me no little pleasure, I must confess, 
 to find this example of monogamy in birds. I 
 should like to pursue the matter further, for it is 
 my belief that it is far more commonly the case 
 than most people suppose. But to do this I must 
 in some way catch and mark my birds and I can 
 imagine little sympathy from Diana in the process. 
 
 We have both been engaged during the last few 
 weeks in a most engrossing study the songs of all 
 the different birds in the garden. In the evenings 
 we sit out on the lawn in the seat under the mulberry 
 tree, listening for the last note of the blackcap until 
 the sun sets and the first notes of the nightingale 
 begin. 
 
 Every stave of their song we whistle over again. 
 It is astonishing how well girls whistle now-a-days. 
 Diana is much surer of her notes than am I. 
 Georgina could never make a sound between her 
 lips at all. 
 
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 When then we have repeated it two or three 
 times until she is certain of it, Diana writes down 
 the notes in a note-book ruled with lines for music 
 and later renders them with their proper harmonies 
 into a series of I cannot describe them better than 
 preludes. Chopin I believe wrote many preludes 
 a couple of lines of music, the brief records of 
 thoughts that flashed across his brain. But these 
 to my mind are better than that. They are Nature's 
 preludes to eternity; I cannot bring myself to think 
 of a world where birds will never sing. Diana plays 
 them to me in the evenings when all the birds 
 are silent. Our piano is tinkly perhaps, but it has 
 a sweetness when the soft pedal is down and I 
 would not have one of your Bluthners or Bechsteins 
 in place of it. So far, in our repertoire, we have 
 the blackcap and the nightingale the thrush, the 
 blackbird and the haybird. In time we shall collect 
 them all. 
 
 The other evening as we sat out there, trying 
 to follow the phrases of a robin's song as he sat 
 singing in the lilac tree, Allan Tregenna came across 
 the orchard and looked over our wicket gate. Diana 
 was whistling a stave she had just heard and did 
 not hear him approach, so, for a moment or two,, 
 
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 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 I saw him stand there listening until it was fin- 
 ished. 
 
 "Well done," he said when it came to an end. 
 
 She turned quickly and her cheeks grew scarlet. 
 Women are mysterious creatures to me; they will 
 acquire a masculine trick such as this, but when 
 caught at it, will be covered with confusion. Be- 
 sides, what did it matter if he heard her? Most 
 girls can whistle now-a-days and I should have 
 thought Diana would have been the last to be 
 ashamed of the accomplishment. 
 
 "Come and sit down here," said I. "We're only 
 trying to catch the song of a robin. We're just 
 stenographers, amanuenses, whatever you like to 
 call us. We're trying to take it down in shorthand. 
 He's the composer." 
 
 I got up from the seat under the mulberry tree 
 and gave him my place. 
 
 "You can whistle better than I can," said I. 
 "Besides, I must go in and write some letters." 
 
 And I left them there, never thinking until it 
 was too late whether I were wise in doing so. I 
 should have felt sorry indeed had there been a 
 repetition of their disagreements, for there is a hot 
 temper I know in Diana and I am sure she has not 
 
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 15 
 
 The Vicar
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 yet forgotten the bullfinch buried under the apple 
 tree in the kitchen garden. 
 
 No doubt my thoughts were over-concerned about 
 it, for I found it difficult to concentrate my atten- 
 tion upon my letters. All through the writing of 
 them, I heard the song of that robin loud above my 
 thoughts. 
 
 "We shall have another prelude added to our 
 repertoire," said I, and as soon as my last letter 
 was sealed and stamped, I went out into the garden 
 to see how Diana had progressed. 
 
 She had done nothing. The book lay open on 
 her lap and never a note was written there. 
 
 "Oh why?" said I. 
 
 "He hasn't been singing just lately has he?" 
 said young Allan. 
 
 "Singing!" I replied. "I could hardly write my 
 letters for his interruptions." 
 
 Diana closed the book on her lap. 
 
 "Yes I think I heard him," said she. 
 
 "You do understand what we're doing, don't 
 you ?" said I. He shook his head. I told him then 
 how Diana was collecting the songs of all the birds 
 about us and setting them into what it pleased us 
 to call preludes. 
 
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 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "Am I to hear them ?" he asked. 
 I suggested to Diana that she should go and play 
 them to him then. The windows of the drawing- 
 
 > 
 
 room open onto the lawn. I could hear the music 
 from where I was. The sun had just gone down 
 and the whole garden was warm with the light of 
 the glorious clouds. They burnt like a bonfire 
 through the trees in the orchard. 
 
 "Go and play them to him now," said I. "I'll sit 
 here and listen." 
 
 Without a word she picked up her book and 
 walked across to the drawing-room. Without a 
 word, he followed her. 
 
 I waited a little while in the silence, thinking 
 of these two; then, as the first gently tinkling 
 notes of the piano crept out into the garden, 
 stealing through the bushes and across the scented 
 stocks to my ears, all thoughts of them vanished. 
 I was alone with Georgina. So she used to 
 play to me in the days of our courting; so she 
 often played to me through the years we were 
 married. 
 
 I suppose I do not really care for music, for 
 it was not the harmonies or the melodies that my 
 ears listened to with such intent. It was just the 
 
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 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 impression and the memories which the sounds 
 were bringing me. 
 
 All the house was in twilight. In no room had 
 they yet lit the lamps. But in the drawing-room, 
 through the open window, I could see the figure 
 and the head of Diana, her profile just outlined 
 in the darkness of the room by the light of the 
 two candles that were burning in their sconces on 
 the piano. 
 
 It brought me back the whole of twenty years. 
 There she was playing Georgina to my memories. 
 I must have been lost in a reverie, thinking almost 
 that she was Georgina herself, when some shadow 
 moved in the room. I saw the silhouette of a head 
 as it leant forward against the candle-light; I saw 
 the dark line of an arm stretched across to turn the 
 pages of the music. It was young Allan. For all 
 those wonderful moments of my reverie, I had for- 
 gotten him. At last it broke out upon me with a 
 sudden rush I must not call it fear. She was 
 playing not to my memories, but to him; and there 
 was I, with all the years behind me, watching my 
 own story being told to me again. With an over- 
 whelming conviction, I knew in that moment the 
 story was the same. 
 
 219
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 What man I thought could sit there and listen 
 to my Diana playing, without knowing the same 
 love that I had known for Georgina? A thousand 
 little proofs came readily to my mind the empty 
 page of the note-book, the flush upon her cheeks, 
 the verses of poetry, the expressions which passed 
 across her face that morning after she had put up 
 her hair. 
 
 Yes I know now Diana is in love. And he, 
 of course, must be. I dared not let my mind run 
 into speculations then upon what all of it would 
 mean. I have wished often that they should be 
 friends; how could I be sorry to find that they 
 are lovers now. 
 
 Yet a feeling of loneliness came over me and, 
 try how I might, I could not drive it away. At 
 last I knew I could not stay and watch them any 
 longer. I left my seat in the garden and, creeping 
 past the window of the drawing-room, I entered 
 the house by another way and went up to Georgina's 
 room. 
 
 Pulling the blinds and opening the window, I 
 could still hear the sounds of the piano. I felt 
 more comfortable there. For some little while they 
 continued. Diana would play a prelude, then play 
 
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 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 it again and then again. But at last the music 
 stopped. The whole evening was steeped in silence. 
 
 What were they doing then? I felt his lips on 
 the smooth cool skin of Diana's cheeks. 
 
 "I know I kissed Georgina," thought I. 
 
 At ten o'clock when Diana went to bed, I kissed 
 her first on the left cheek, which is my custom. 
 She was just about to turn away when I caught 
 her head in my hands and kissed her on the other 
 cheek as well. 
 
 How was I to know which cheek it was ?
 
 JUNE 25
 
 HE last entry I made in this note-book 
 began with reference to a pair of 
 thrushes that had mated again this 
 year and now there comes to my 
 notice an incident in the parish, bear- 
 ing some similarity, it seems to me, 
 to the case of the birds I have quoted. 
 Diana brought me word of it. All 
 the things that happen in the village 
 come quickly to her ears. She spoke 
 of it this morning at breakfast. 
 
 "Do you remember Eliza Selby?" she asked me. 
 I thought awhile; I can remember well enough 
 the names of birds, but the names of people often 
 escape me. 
 
 "Who was she?" I asked. 
 
 "Don't worry," she replied. "You never knew 
 her. Years and years before you came here, she 
 married a man named Fuel and went to live at 
 Long Allingham. But you know Fastnedge, don't 
 you?" 
 
 I nodded my head. I was glad I did know him. 
 225
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "The poor old fellow," said I, "who lives down 
 in that cottage near the mill." 
 
 "Do you know how old he is?" she asked. 
 
 "He was seventy when his wife died," said I, 
 "that was five years ago wasn't it?" 
 
 "Yes he's seventy-five and do you know 
 what's happened ?" 
 
 All that she said, suggested to me that the poor 
 old man had died suddenly, yet that was not in 
 the tone of her voice. 
 
 "What has happened?" I asked. "Am I wanted 
 there now ?" I was beginning to fold my serviette. 
 I felt sure there was something for me to do. 
 
 "There's no hurry," said Diana smiling. 
 "There's more to tell yet. It appears that nearly 
 fifty well, I suppose forty-five years ago, he and 
 Eliza Selby were engaged to be married. Then they 
 fell out over something or other and she married 
 Fuel and went to Long Allingham. I forget whom 
 Fastnedge married, but he stayed on here." 
 
 "Well?" said I. She was taking so long over 
 the telling of it that by now my curiosity was well 
 aroused. 
 
 "Well now his wife and her husband are dead 
 and it seems they've been fond of each other all 
 
 226
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 the time, because she's come over from Long Ailing- 
 ham and she's living with him in his little cottage." 
 
 "But she must be nearly seventy," said I. 
 
 "I know; that's the funny part of it." 
 
 "Where were they married?" I enquired. 
 
 "They're not married," said Diana and I knew 
 she was closely watching my face. I rolled up 
 my serviette and fitted it through the silver ring 
 which was one of our wedding presents when 
 Georgina and I were married. I did not know 
 what to say. For the moment it bewildered me, 
 yet I cannot admit that I felt anything more than 
 that. I do not know what I felt. 
 
 "I shall go down and see them now," said I, and 
 straightway I went. 
 
 The cottage in which Fastnedge has lived for 
 these last thirty years is just beside Horlock's Mill. 
 The sound of the water turning the old wooden 
 wheel continues there like a song, never variant 
 yet never monotonous, night and day. The stream 
 supplying it, sets off through an avenue of willow 
 trees out into the broad country, beside meadows 
 that grow such a variety of wild flowers as I have 
 ever seen. There on the banks of it the sedge- 
 warbler and the reed-warbler, the buntings and 
 
 227
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 moor-hens build their nests and bring up their 
 young in perfect peace and absolute seclusion. 
 Wild mint and forget-me-nots grow thick together 
 there. At places it .tunnels its way beneath the 
 trees and the water rats swim fearlessly in the 
 shadows. 
 
 There is an old green punt on the open stretch 
 of water near the wheel. It belongs to Horlock, 
 the miller. He kindly gives me the free use of it, 
 but I have not been in it for more than a twelve 
 month. Yet many were the days when Georgina 
 and I drove it up those murmuring waters, under 
 the willows and the oak trees, forever turning the 
 countless bends and corners when the meadows and 
 the country opened wide between a break of the 
 trees and then was lost again. 
 
 Until he was well nigh seventy, Fastnedge 
 worked in the mill and then, as a kind of pension, 
 young Horlock, who had taken on the work after 
 his father, allowed him to stay on at a re- 
 duced rent which Fastnedge pays out of the odd 
 jobs he does about the place. Rheumatism has set 
 his bones, for I fancy it must be a damp spot to 
 live in. He walks with the aid of a stick and is 
 a shadow of the man he was. I have a great affec- 
 
 228
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 tion for him. Often Georgina and I had tea in 
 that little cottage as we returned from our expedi- 
 tions up the stream. I had no misgiving therefore 
 
 "He was standing by his 
 cottage door." 
 
 on my way down to see him. I knew that he would 
 listen quietly and reasonably to all I had to say. He 
 was standing at his cottage door, for the day was 
 fine and the sun was hot as I came up. 
 
 "Good morning, Fastnedge," I said cheerfully. 
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 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 I did not wish him to think that I was concerned 
 in any way. 
 
 "Good morning, sur," he replied, but he made 
 no movement for me to step inside. I understood. 
 "He's not quite proud of himself," thought I, 
 "that's half the battle fought already." 
 
 But I was wrong when I imagined that, for 
 though, when I said I wanted a talk with him, he 
 suggested we should sit together on the weir by 
 the side of the water, it was not really that he was 
 ashamed to ask me within. I shall try to put down 
 exactly what we said. 
 
 I informed him I was not going to beat about 
 the bush. I told him then what I had heard. 
 
 "That's true enough," said he. "I've been ex- 
 pecting 'ee round this way for the last two days." 
 
 "Well, Fastnedge," I replied, "you can't per- 
 sist in this. You can't go on living here with Mrs. 
 Fuel, just as if you were married." 
 
 "Why not, sur?" he asked. 
 
 "Well plainly," said I, "because it would be a 
 scandal in the village." 
 
 "Do 'ee know how old I be ?" he asked. 
 
 "Yes," said I, "you're exactly seventy-five or 
 thereabouts." 
 
 230
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "Do 'ee know how old she be?" 
 
 "I've heard she's about seventy." 
 
 "Well?" said he, and he planted out his stick, 
 firmly on the ground at arm's length and he looked 
 me honestly in the face. 
 
 "Yes I know all that," said I, "but you must 
 remember, Fastnedge, that marriage is a sacrament 
 without which no two people can be joined to- 
 gether. To ignore it, to avoid it, is to live in sin." 
 
 "Would 'ee mind tellin' me, sur," he replied, 
 "what sin there be left in the world for an old man 
 of seventy-five and an old woman of seventy to 
 do? They do say as how one goes back to second 
 childhood when 'ee be my age. And indeedie with 
 my rheumatiz I might be a babe in arms. What 
 sin is there in two old folks like us comin' together 
 for company so as we mayn't die lonesome like ?" 
 
 The picture of these two which those simple 
 words brought to my mind was such, that for the 
 moment I could not answer him in justice to myself. 
 Children indeed they were and, as when they are 
 little, we have no thought to see our children sleep- 
 ing side by side for company through the night, so 
 why should there be any shame to these two old 
 people? When he spoke of dying lonesome, I could 
 16 231
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 imagine them side by side in the bed which Fast- 
 nedge has slept in for so long alone in which I 
 have seen him so many times bearing the pains of 
 all he suffers without comfort or complaint and 
 I could not but feel that there was no sin in such 
 a simple union. 
 
 "Do you object to being married then, Fast- 
 nedge ?" I asked at length. 
 
 "No, sur," said he, " 'tisn't as if I object I 
 reads my Bible just the same as ever I did and I 
 reads how St. Paul said, it's better not to be mar- 
 ried, same as he was, but that if a man can't abide 
 it so to speak then he might as well be married 
 rather 'n be burnt. But what's that got to do wi* 
 me, sur, now? There's no call for to burn me 
 my old bones wouldn't make much of a bonfire for 
 no one. No, sur, I don't object, but it seems to me, 
 what's the good. T-a 'gin with, look you, I can't 
 afford it, and then it ain't goin' to make no better 
 o' us, 'cos there ain't no bad in us. We're a pair 
 of old children, sur, that's what it comes to and 
 wouldn't you pop your bairns in a bed and not 
 think one way or t'other about it?" 
 
 He stopped a moment and looked at me squarely 
 again. Then he pulled off the seeded head of a 
 
 232
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 dandelion and, putting it up to his lips, he blew it 
 into the wind. I could not help thinking what a 
 child indeed he was. 
 
 "You see, sur," he went on, "if we two were to 
 go up to the church together we should have the 
 whole village on our heels laughing at us and 
 though, mind you, I'd laugh wi' 'em, 'cos I'd know 
 what a fool I'd look, yet I'm sure she'd feel it a bit. 
 She'd set her cap straight now, look you, if you 
 was to step inside 'cos as I sees it a woman dies a 
 woman. There's no making no child out of her." 
 
 There was so much truth in all he said and yet, 
 convention, I suppose it was, made me feel it my 
 bounden duty to press my point. 
 
 "So far as the matter of money goes, Fastnedge," 
 said I, "let me make you a wedding present." 
 
 "What's that, sur?" 
 
 "Let me marry you for nothing." 
 
 He sat there in silence for a long while, then with 
 difficulty he helped himself to his feet. 
 
 "I'll go and ask her," said he, and I went away 
 not altogether happy in my mind. It seemed to me 
 he had a broader view of life than have I.
 
 ' / 
 
 /^ OY must be in the heart of praise. . I 
 would preach happiness before I thought 
 of cleanliness in despite of any proverb 
 in the world. 
 
 A robin was killed yesterday in the 
 garden by the cat they feed in the 
 kitchen. The bird was sitting on her 
 nest and the mother instinct, I suppose 
 it was, bid her stay there in defence of her young. 
 So the cat caught her. We found the nest scat- 
 tered across the grass, the young fledglings dead 
 in the midst of it and only a few grey feathers were 
 all that remained of the mother. 
 
 I have kept the news of it successfully from 
 Diana and now I see the male bird moping out his 
 heart on the hedge near by where the nest was built 
 for he helped, too, in the building of it. He is 
 sitting there with his head a little on one side, 
 silent and songless. It is almost heart-rending to 
 watch him. Death is never so cruel as life can 
 sometimes be. 
 
 He will get over it, I know. If he lives until 
 237
 
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 next Spring, perhaps even before this Summer is 
 out, he will choose another mate and sing his songs 
 again. But now all joy has left him. He cannot 
 praise the day. What folly it is to say birds do not 
 suffer ! 
 
 When I thought of this, I chose the sixty-third 
 Psalm to read before prayers this morning. I had 
 given it out and was waiting for them to find their 
 places when I looked up and saw that Rachel, the 
 cook, was not there. 
 
 I asked Alice, the housemaid, where she was. 
 She told me that Rachel was cleaning out my study. 
 
 "Tell her that we are ready for prayers," said I. 
 
 Alice looked uncomfortable and she glanced at 
 Diana. 
 
 "What's the matter?" I asked. 
 
 "I told her it was prayers, sir," said Alice, "and 
 she said she was not coming in." 
 
 "Why not?" 
 
 "Said she'd got her work to do, sir." 
 
 "Go out," said I, "at once and tell her we're 
 waiting." 
 
 As soon as the door had closed, Diana looked 
 up at me. 
 
 "She won't come, Daddy," she remarked. 
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 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "But she must," I replied, "I won't have any 
 servant in my house staying away from prayers." 
 And then I am afraid that pride must in some way 
 
 " 'Said she'd got her work 
 to do, sir.'" 
 
 have blinded my proper sense of vision. I felt 
 more annoyed at being disobeyed, than grieved at 
 Rachel's behaviour. As Diana put it to me after- 
 wards, I lost my sense of humour. 
 
 I have never heard so much importance given to 
 this sense of humour as lately, since Diana came 
 
 239
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 back from school, but am now beginning to believe 
 that there is something in it. It even seems to me 
 sometimes that God himself must appreciate it and 
 indeed must feel the want of it in many. 
 
 Perhaps I did lose my sense of humour then, 
 for when Alice returned and said that Rachel still 
 refused to come and was persisting in cleaning 
 out my study, I felt my cheeks get hot and I de- 
 clared that Rachel would have to find another 
 situation. 
 
 "Well, read prayers now, Daddy," said Diana 
 quietly. "We can talk about that after breakfast." 
 
 With my cheeks still burning then I changed the 
 reading I had chosen. 
 
 "I will not read the sixty-third Psalm," said I. 
 "You can turn instead to the second chapter of 
 the Epistle of Peter beginning at the eleventh 
 verse." 
 
 When the rustle of the leaves of their Bibles was 
 silent, I began and as I came to the eighteenth 
 verse, "Servants, be subject to your masters with 
 all fear; not only to the good and gentle, but also 
 to the froward," I looked up to make sure that 
 Alice was listening or following the words and 
 then I caught sight of Diana's face. Her head was 
 
 240
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 bent rather lower than usual over her book. I 
 could not see her eyes, but I knew from the ex- 
 pression of her lips that they were twinkling. I 
 don't know why exactly, but I wished then that 
 I had continued with the sixty-third Psalm. 
 
 After prayers were over, we began breakfast in 
 silence, which Diana was the first to break as she 
 passed me my tea. 
 
 "You're not going to send Rachel away, Daddy," 
 she said quietly. 
 
 "I certainly shall," said I. 
 
 Somehow or other I felt that my case was a poor 
 one. I knew that somewhere I was in the wrong, 
 but pride would give me no license to admit it. 
 
 "No, you won't," she repeated. "You don't un- 
 derstand yet." 
 
 "What is there to understand?" I demanded. 
 "Rachel refuses to come in to prayers and it is a 
 condition I enforce amongst my servants in this 
 household, as indeed should be enforced in every 
 household, that they should attend prayers." 
 
 Never a smile passed across Diana's face, yet it 
 annoyed me the more because I knew she wanted to. 
 
 "You'd better hear what's happened first," said 
 she gently. How like Georgina she was then! It 
 
 241
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 recalled the many times to my mind when the gentle 
 answers of Georgina had turned away my wrath. 
 But I was not ready for it to be turned away just 
 then. I suppose I thought it maintained my dignity 
 for me. What poor creatures we are! 
 
 "What has happened?" I asked. 
 
 "Well," she replied, "for the last few months 
 Rachel has had a young man. She's been walking 
 out with him and I believe had every intention of 
 marrying him. Now he's transferred his affections 
 to Alice. They fell out over it rather badly at 
 first I'm not surprised but I think she and Alice 
 are friends again now. Rachel realises that it can't 
 be helped, but that doesn't make her any the less 
 miserable. And last evening he gave Alice a ring. 
 I don't wonder she wants to work." 
 
 I looked out of the window. There was the robin 
 still sitting songless where his nest had been. With 
 my mind accusing me of all my folly, I came across 
 to Diana and laid my hand on her shoulder. 
 
 "Your father's a fool, my dear," said I. 
 
 "My father's a dear, my dear," said she. 
 
 Oh, yes, joy must be in the heart of praise. I 
 would preach happiness before I thought of cleanli- 
 ness. I would much sooner that my study were 
 untidy and undusted. Happiness is better than that. 
 
 242
 
 JULY 21
 
 HE swallow that builds every year 
 in our potting shed has just brought 
 forth her brood the beginning of 
 this week. Diana called me round 
 to see the four bald heads peering 
 over the edge of the nest. She 
 gets used to our visits after a while 
 and flies in to feed her young, well 
 knowing, I suppose, by this that we 
 are friends. She comes in by the 
 door or the window whenever they are open ; when 
 they are closed, she enters through any one of the 
 four small square holes over the door which I ex- 
 pect were cut in the boarding to afford ventilation. 
 Sometimes I find myself stopping in my work 
 as I sit in my study to watch the marvellous speed 
 and accuracy with which she effects her entrances 
 and exits through those tiny apertures. Until the 
 very moment it seems when she reaches her narrow 
 doorway, her wings are beating fast and not one 
 whit in her pace is slackened. Then her wings fall 
 together and through she goes a twinkle of light 
 
 245
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 on her breast as she half turns to get through and 
 she is gone. Barely one instant and she is out 
 again ; in that moment her children have been fed. 
 If I were satisfied with watching one of these 
 visits, it might not be a waste of time, but in- 
 voluntarily I find myself waiting the two minutes 
 it is not more until she returns once more. In
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 those two minutes she has been many times round 
 the meadow and up and down the stream, never 
 resting, never still, doubtless mindful all the time 
 of those four craning heads with mouths always 
 open to be filled. 
 
 It is a busy, an untiring life. From early morn- 
 ing until the sun has dropped before the pale grey 
 twilight, she ceaselessly pursues these brilliant 
 flights, now high up in the heavens, now skimming 
 the water down the stream. I have wished often 
 I were as diligent as she. And then, not content 
 with the cares and troubles of raising one brood, 
 she is ready to undertake another as soon as the 
 first family can fly. 
 
 Sometimes this is as late as August or even the 
 beginning of September and then I have known the 
 young to be left behind, so deep, so strong is that 
 instinct of migration. 
 
 I have often thought about this, wondering why 
 a bird that shows such devotion to its young 
 throughout the whole summer, should lose all that 
 devotion to such a call as this, leaving its children 
 which it has striven so patiently and so affectionately 
 to rear, that it may start upon its hazardous journey 
 to the south. Hundreds of swallows die every year 
 n 247
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 in that process of migration. On the south coast of 
 France and on the northern coast of Africa 
 numbers of them every year are found washed up 
 by the sea. Yet once the northeast wind has sung 
 its song around the house there is no interest can 
 hold them. The word is sent forth. They collect 
 in their numbers upon the telegraph wires, looking 
 like crotchets on a stave and then, after some chat- 
 tering and commotion, they are gone. When once 
 that has happened, instinctively I find my mind 
 turning from the old year, inevitably looking al- 
 ready towards the new. 
 
 We had often watched this swallow, Diana and 
 I, for, by reason of its yearly visits to the potting 
 shed, it has become a looked-for friend. 
 
 It was on the I5th of April this year, that she 
 burst into my study and exclaimed: 
 
 "Who do you think has come?" 
 
 "Come where?" said I. 
 
 "Here!" 
 
 "To call do you mean ?" 
 
 "No to stay." 
 
 "My dear child," said I in some nervousness, "I 
 hope the spare room is ready." 
 
 "Oh yes it's ready," she replied laughing. 
 248
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "Well who is it?" I asked. "Surely it's not 
 your Aunt Edith ?" 
 
 She turned my head towards the window and bid 
 me look out and then I guessed and knew the days 
 of waiting were all over. I am afraid I count my 
 year by the birds. That is why I am so fond of 
 the robin. He keeps in song when all the rest are 
 silent. The winter would be voiceless but for him. 
 
 We stayed for ten minutes this morning watching 
 this swallow come in and out to feed her young. I 
 remarked upon her untiring industry and then it 
 occurred to me again how strong the instinct of 
 migration must be, from which my mind turned, 
 I cannot say how or why, to a thought of Diana's 
 poetry. 
 
 "Have you written any more verses, my dear," 
 I asked her, "since those 'Between the May and the 
 Rose?'" 
 
 She continued looking up at the nest. 
 
 "That little beggar'll fall out if he's not careful," 
 said she. 
 
 "Have you?" I repeated. 
 
 "Why do you ask?" 
 
 I knew then that she had, but was too reticent to 
 tell me. I did not press the matter further, because 
 
 249
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 that was not the point which I was at. I wanted to 
 suggest to her that she should write something on 
 the migration of the swallow. If I could write 
 verse, this would be just such a theme as I should 
 certainly choose myself. But I do not think I could 
 write two lines of poetry, so I proposed it to her. 
 
 She looked at me very intently for a minute and 
 then, as though the inspiration had suddenly come 
 to her she said, "I'll go and do it now, Daddy. I'll 
 
 write it specially for you " and she went off 
 
 into the house singing with that strong, young voice 
 of hers, her head thrown back, her body swinging 
 to every step. She is another songster whom the 
 winter cannot silence. I wonder, sometimes in fear, 
 if she may not prove migratory, too. 
 
 This afternoon at tea, she brought her verses to 
 me. I transcribe them into this note-book with 
 more right than I did the last. These are my very 
 own. 
 
 "You can hear the South Winds calling, 
 And the swallow hears them, too 
 'Cross the hills and down the heather 
 There they ride and who cares whether 
 North and East winds ride together, 
 For the South Wind's calling you. 
 
 250
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 You can hear the South Winds whisp'ring, 
 
 And the swallow hears them, too 
 
 All the heather bells are dinging 
 
 To the magic of their ringing 
 
 And your heart is up and singing 
 
 For the South Wind's calling you. 
 
 You can hear the South Winds saying, 
 And the swallow hears them, too 
 That the world is full of wonder 
 All the burning blue skies under; 
 Yet you break your lives asunder, 
 Though the South Wind's calling you. 
 
 Am I really to believe that this was specially 
 written for me ?
 
 JULY 29
 
 HE process of education and 
 enlightenment is going on 
 apace. This morning our swallow 
 took her brood out onto the branch 
 of a willow tree and there fed them in the 
 sunshine. They sat close together in a row, 
 like children on a form in school, none too 
 certain of their foothold. It was a lesson in 
 balancing, which it seems they all learnt 
 without mishap. How she got them there 
 is more than I can understand. I only wish 
 I had been present to watch the proceedings, for 
 they cannot fly; at least, none of them have at- 
 tempted to do so all this morning. 
 
 In the intervals of feeding them, she still flies in 
 and out of the potting shed. I suppose she is put- 
 ting her house in order for the new brood, that is 
 to come. There cannot be so much to do, for they 
 are cleanly creatures and all the time that the young 
 are fledging, clean out the nest every day until, as 
 Alice the housemaid would say it is as bright as 
 a new pin. After a time, before even they can fly, 
 
 255
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 the young birds are able to look after themselves. I 
 have no doubt it is she who teaches them how best 
 they may perform their duties of the day. She is a 
 careful housewife. 
 
 Apparently some part of the nest needs mending 
 for I see her now gathering mud at the edge of our 
 little pond. She has mixed it well and taken it into 
 the potting shed. 
 
 256
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 Now she comes out once more and flies back- 
 wards and forwards across the water dipping again 
 and again, breaking the surface as she goes. She 
 is taking her bath, washing away the remains of the 
 mud from her throat with which she does all 
 the work of plastering. What a cleanly creature 
 she is! 
 
 In a day or two I suppose will begin the lessons 
 in flying and that is a perilous business for the 
 wings of the young swallows are almost dispropor- 
 tionate in length. If once they fall to the ground, 
 like the full-grown swift, they cannot rise again. 
 
 I have told Diana and we are both determined to 
 keep a good watch against such accidents when once 
 the lessons begin. I hinted to her that the kitchen 
 cat was fond of catching birds, but told her nothing 
 of the robin. 
 
 "I suppose they must learn to fly," said she; 
 "they must migrate. Why can't they stay on in 
 England? We could heat the potting shed. They 
 wouldn't find it cold then." 
 
 I laughed at her simplicity and then answered 
 her with her very own words. 
 
 " 'You can hear the South Winds calling'," said 
 I, " 'And the swallow hears them, too'." 
 
 257
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 She took my arm tightly in hers. 
 
 "I don't hear them, Daddy," she replied very 
 firmly so firmly that I looked at her and wondered 
 what she meant.
 
 AUGUST 2
 
 STAND accused of my own narrow- 
 mindedness. A thing has happened 
 for which I think I would have 
 thrown all convention upon one side 
 to have avoided. The laws of fate 
 are greater than the laws of man. 
 That is all I can find to say when I 
 look back upon it from the beginning. 
 I would not preach such sentiments 
 as these in any pulpit. It is so easy 
 there to be misunderstood. But here 
 in my note-book and to myself, I say 
 again the laws of fate are greater than the laws 
 of man. 
 
 Fastnedge, who lives down at the mill, more I am 
 sure to gratify me than from any wish of it him- 
 self, consented to be married. For three Sundays, 
 I read the banns and the first time, thinking I saw 
 a smile on Suskind's face, I looked at him sternly 
 as I concluded my reading. The next Sunday at 
 evening service, seeing that neither Fastnedge nor 
 Mrs. Fuel were there, I spoke in my service of the 
 
 261
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 honour due to those who observed the rites of the 
 Church. 
 
 "It is becoming the habit of many," said I, "to 
 take a pride in thinking for themselves but there 
 is a discipline of mind as well as of body. We can- 
 not all take the wheel ; we cannot all steer the ship. 
 There must be one to command while there are 
 many to obey and obedience can be as great a virtue 
 as authority." 
 
 When I read the banns for the last time, Sus- 
 kind's face was as solemn as a judge. 
 
 Now they are married and retribution has fallen 
 upon me. All that I said to Fastnedge, all that I 
 said in my sermon comes back to make me feel 
 ashamed. What sin indeed could there have been 
 for them, I ask myself. Why did I not leave them 
 like children as they were ? 
 
 On the day that they were married, Spencer, the 
 man who looks after the church, did not think it 
 necessary to light the fire, heating the water in the 
 pipes that run down the chancel. I did not even 
 think to tell him to do it myself. Certainly it was 
 colder than we had expected. An east wind got up 
 in the night and was still blowing in gusts, rattling 
 the windows of the vicarage all that morning. 
 
 262
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 At eleven o'clock I had to drive over to Morton 
 to see a builder about some parochial matter. I 
 thought as I came back how cold it was and, look- 
 ing at my watch, when I was still some three miles 
 from Bramlingham, I found that it wanted half an 
 hour to the moment when I was due at the church 
 for the wedding. Making all the speed I could, I 
 was still a quarter of an hour late and found the 
 two old people there waiting for me. 
 
 We had kept the day of the wedding a secret, so 
 that there was no one to laugh at them as they came 
 away, and when the service was over, they went off 
 arm in arm, she leaning on him on one side, he 
 leaning on his stick on the other. I smiled then at 
 the pleasure that it gave me to see them man and 
 wife. It flattered my vanity I suppose to think I 
 had got my way. 
 
 I remember what Diana said to me that day at 
 lunch. 
 
 "I wonder if they'll be any happier now," she 
 said. 
 
 I remember my reply. 
 
 "How could they fail to be?" said I. 
 
 Now all these things come back to me. In that 
 cold church, perhaps in those very moments while 
 
 18 263
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 they waited for my arrival, Mrs. Fastnedge caught 
 a chill. In a few days it had developed to pneu- 
 monia, and two days later than that, she died. It 
 
 was almost too swift and sudden to believe. For a 
 whole day the poor old man sat beside the bed, 
 staring at her, unable to realise the truth. 
 
 I went down to see him and for a long while he 
 sat there saying nothing ; then at last he looked up 
 at me and he said, "She were such a child, surr 
 that's what beats me." 
 
 264
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 I do not think he even meant it in reproach, yet 
 it came home to me more than anything else he 
 could have said. She was such a child why could 
 I not have left her so? 
 
 The laws of fate are greater than the laws of 
 man. That is all I can say.
 
 AUGUST 4
 
 'AST evening Allan Tregenna brought 
 round an old book on birds, pub- 
 lished in 1743, which he had found 
 amongst the volumes in his father's 
 study. It was greatly interesting in 
 that it showed me how much was 
 known of our British birds before 
 Gilbert White wrote his famous let- 
 ters from Selbourne. There was 
 not much in it that was accurate, 
 but a great deal that was fanciful. The author was 
 prone to the superstitions of those days. He speaks 
 quite seriously in a chapter on bees of the effect 
 upon them brought about by the death of their 
 owner, and is assured in such a case that the death 
 of the whole hive is bound to follow. He did not 
 go so far as to advocate the message being con- 
 veyed to them that their owner was dead or that 
 they would in future have to work for some one 
 else. J think, however, that this is mentioned in a 
 letter of Gilbert White's upon the superstitions of 
 Selbourne. 
 
 269
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 When I thought how soon young Allan would 
 be gone away to his uncle's farm in California, and 
 despite the fear of all I had imagined when he was 
 with us last time, I asked him to stay on for our 
 high tea. It needed no pressure to persuade him. 
 After this meal, which in the summer months we 
 have at eight in order to prolong the evening, we 
 sat out with Diana in the garden talking of his 
 future, of many things beside. 
 
 The candles in the drawing-room had been 
 lighted and the number of moths drawn towards 
 the glow was astonishing. I do not think I have 
 ever seen so many or such a variety before. Diana 
 closed the window so that they could not fly into 
 the room drawn towards their own destruction. 
 We sat there watching them as they beat in vain 
 against the glass. 
 
 It occurred to me at last what an excellent oppor- 
 tunity it was to make some observations, and I 
 went into the house to get my jar of rum and 
 treacle, which every Spring I have prepared and 
 corked down in readiness for just such an occasion 
 as this. 
 
 They still sat there under the mulberry tree while 
 I went round with my pot and brush to all the trees 
 
 270
 
 t lULJUL 
 
 '" 
 
 Diana and Allan
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 in the garden. This painting of the bark is a sim- 
 ple method of baiting and does no harm to the 
 moth. To the smell of the spirit it comes very 
 swiftly; then from the stupor from the rum and 
 the stickiness of the treacle it remains upon the tree 
 an excellent object for observation. To set it free 
 is the work of a moment. I have often taken them 
 into the house with me and have found them re- 
 cover from the effects of the alcohol in a very short 
 time. 
 
 These expeditions always bring back to me the 
 days when I was a boy at school. I experience the 
 same sensations of excitement as I approach each 
 tree to see what fortune is in store for me. Diana 
 has but little sympathy with it, though I have as- 
 sured her there is no cruelty in the process. It was 
 for this reason that last evening I went alone. 
 
 As I had anticipated, the result was most satis- 
 factory. I found moths upon every patch of bark 
 I had painted. On some of the trees, there were as 
 many as a dozen clinging to the same place. Of 
 tiger moths and yellow-under wings there must have 
 been a score. Three humming-bird hawk-moths I 
 counted. These creatures I have a great affection 
 for. They fly mostly by day as well as night and 
 
 273
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 true to the name that has been given them, their 
 flight is much more like that of a bird than an in- 
 sect. I always stop to watch them in the garden 
 when, with that invisible movement of their wings 
 it is so swift they visit nearly all the flowers we 
 grow. Over the blossoms of the honeysuckle and 
 the lilac, they hover like any bird. I set them all 
 free, putting them in some safe place where they 
 might recover from their torpor. One interesting 
 fact about these moths is that you may see them at 
 almost any time of the year. The imagines appear 
 in August or September and hibernate all the win- 
 ter through. Any warm day will bring them out, 
 and I have seen them upon the wing in December 
 and January, on one of those days when a blue sky 
 and a bright sun deceive you and them into the 
 belief that the Spring is close at hand. 
 
 One moth I discovered on my treacle patches last 
 evening which is new to me. The fore wings were 
 pale reddish brown, dusted with white in the centre. 
 The hind wings were white or grey, dusted with 
 pale brown. I think it must be the pebble-promi- 
 nent moth. In any case it is a new species to me. 
 
 I found it on an espalier apple tree in the kitchen 
 garden, and it was while examining it that I heard 
 
 274
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 the voices of Diana and young Allan. They had 
 left their seat under the mulberry tree and were 
 walking up and down the path between the currant 
 bushes. There is the border where we grow our 
 flowers for cutting, our stocks and mignonette, our 
 red and white cloves and our cabbage roses. On a 
 still summer evening, the air is laden with the scent 
 of them. It brought back to my mind the days 
 when Georgina and I had walked up and down the 
 paths of the garden at their house ; how Acres, the 
 gardener, would rest upon his spade and talk to us 
 until we heartily wished he would have the sense 
 to know that we would sooner be alone, yet had not 
 the courage to interrupt his talk and leave him. 
 
 I would not have joined them then and made a 
 third, for all that I could see, yet perhaps it was 
 curiosity but not of an idle nature I would swear 
 that made me strain my ears to listen as I heard 
 the sound of Allan's voice. If this was eavesdrop- 
 ping, still, I excuse myself without hesitation. 
 There was no suspicion in my mind as I listened, 
 only that anxiety which surely every father must 
 feel for his only child. It was her happiness I de- 
 sired before any thought or consideration of my 
 own. It was for the sound of her happiness I 
 
 275
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 listened and, with the first words of his that reached 
 my ears, I knew that happiness it was of which 
 they talked. 
 
 "At least you'll let me speak to your father," said 
 he. 
 
 The beating of my heart seemed to wait for her 
 answer. 
 
 "It's no good, my dear," said she and in her 
 276
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 voice I heard Georgina speaking across the thin veil 
 that separates us now. "You mustn't say a word 
 to him. It's I who say it can't be, and you wonder 
 how I can care when I say it. But just be him for 
 a moment and think. He's been everything to me. 
 When Mother died, I suppose I became everything 
 to him. Now think what it would be if I went 
 away all those thousands of miles and he was left 
 here alone." 
 
 "Must the young live for the old?" said Allan. 
 
 Nearly I cried out "No !" It was the true, the 
 honest thing to say. I felt no thought against him 
 in my heart as I heard the words. I should have 
 said them myself in such a case. Yet apprehension, 
 eagerness, I suppose if I were honest I should call 
 it hope, all crowded into my mind as I listened for 
 her reply. 
 
 "I don't know how to answer that," she said, 
 after a long pause. "Perhaps they shouldn't. One 
 is only young once I know and you could go on 
 talking of the rights of youth till you were tired. 
 But there's always something which just alters your 
 own case and puts it outside the general rule. First 
 and perhaps biggest of all, I promised Daddy, soon 
 after Mother died, I promised him I'd never leave 
 
 277
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 him. That was a promise made very solemnly in a 
 very solemn moment. How could I break it? 
 Then think of him alone here. He's lost Mother 
 how would he bear it if he had to lose me? I can 
 see him, just as he was after Mother died. He 
 loves his birds, but he never wrote once in his note- 
 book for nearly a whole year. He used to go and 
 sit in the room where Mother died, creep up there 
 when he thought I didn't know. It was in that 
 room I promised him. And I know just what he'd 
 say if you spoke to him. He'd never stand in our 
 way for a moment. He'd let me go right away to 
 California with you and do you know what that 
 would be?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "It 'ud be the end of his life just the end of it." 
 
 I waited for his answer, but he seemingly had 
 no word to say. I heard their footsteps dying 
 away as they walked out of the kitchen garden on 
 the lawn beyond. 
 
 Then I set free my little moth and followed them 
 into the house.
 
 AUGUST 5 
 
 19
 
 SAID nothing to them that evening, 
 but when Allan was going, I asked 
 Diana to see that the door into the 
 hen-house was locked. There have 
 been foxes in our neighbourhood 
 lately and we have lost some 
 chickens by them. I thought of the 
 hen-house because only half an 
 hour before it had been in my mind. 
 I had gone specially to lock it then 
 myself. So they went together. I 
 knew they must wish to say good- 
 night as lovers do. I knew, too, what 
 a moment it is with those long hours of the night 
 in front of them before they can meet again. 
 
 It took her twenty minutes to see whether the 
 hen-house was locked. I even wonder it had not 
 taken more. And while she was gone, I sat in my 
 study and thought of what it would be best to do. 
 From the tone of her voice in the garden, from my 
 knowledge of her character as well, I knew that 
 Diana would be faithful to her promise. No per- 
 
 281
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 suasion of mine would ever have been strong 
 enough to make her break it; no assurance of mine 
 would ever induce in her the belief that I should not 
 be lonely. She knows me too well. By subterfuge 
 and strategy alone could I succeed in bringing her 
 to her happiness, and so I sat there then, planning 
 what I should do. 
 
 I found a way to it at last. 
 
 "In such a case as this," said I, "deception is no 
 deceit." 
 
 It was at that moment, Diana opened the door 
 of my study. 
 
 "The hen-house was locked, Daddy," said she, 
 and I scarcely heard the words. My mind was all 
 attracted to a lock of hair that had slipped loose 
 upon her shoulder. 
 
 "He's kissed her hair," I said to myself, and 
 when I bid her good-night it occurred to me to kiss 
 it, too.
 
 AUGUST 8
 
 'HE swallows have learnt to fly 
 against the day of their migration. 
 I pointed them out this morning to 
 Diana as we stood on the lawn 
 together ready to go to church. 
 They were chasing each other 
 ^^/ with short uncertain flights 
 
 across the paddock, returning 
 every moment to the branch of 
 a willow hanging over the little 
 pond on which the mother bird 
 sat in readiness to help them. 
 Her cream white breast and ruddy throat glit- 
 tered in the sunshine. Only a grebe's feathers it 
 seems to me are more silky than a swallow's, and I 
 know of no bird that can compare with the gloss of 
 her wing. She sat singing there her tireless song, 
 a trilling twitter of delight, and with it the willow 
 leaves trembled and whispered with every breath of 
 wind. They shivered and murmured with her song 
 now they were pale green, now they were pale 
 
 285
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 silver. She sat there on her branch shining like a 
 deep blue sapphire in a glitter of light. 
 
 "They're ready to leave us now," said I, as we 
 watched the young birds come back to their branch. 
 
 "I wish they never learnt to fly," said Diana. "I 
 could look after them so well if they stayed here." 
 
 "Why wish to alter the ways of life, my dear?" 
 I replied. "Do you think you could have conceived 
 them with greater wisdom than as they are? We 
 must all go forth into the world; we all have our 
 duties to do and our better instincts to obey. I re- 
 gret it as much as any when the swallows go away ; 
 but how much more should I not regret it if in 
 feebleness they had failed to learn to fly ? I might 
 as well regret that you are young and strong. I 
 might grudge you that colour in your cheeks I 
 might as well wish your body were not straight or 
 your limbs supple as wish that the swallows had 
 never learnt to fly." 
 
 I felt then that I was drifting into my sermon, 
 before even I had got to church, so, taking her arm, 
 I led her away out of the garden. 
 
 "You're very wise, Daddy," said she. 
 
 "There are things better than wisdom," said I. 
 "I would sooner be strong to fly." 
 
 286
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 I don't know whether she quite knew what I 
 meant but, casting a glance at her as she walked 
 beside me, I saw that there were deep thoughts in 
 her mind. 
 
 In the three days that had passed since their con- 
 versation which I had overheard in the garden, I 
 had said nothing. I had done nothing. This was 
 Sunday and I was going to take my first step in the 
 .strategy I had determined to pursue. 
 
 I had made sure that Allan would be there for 
 morning service, and when I got up into the pulpit 
 I gave out my text from the eleventh chapter of 
 Ecclesiastes and the ninth verse: 
 
 "Rejoice, O young man, in thy youth; and let 
 thy heart cheer thee in the days of thy youth and 
 walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the sight of 
 thine eyes." 
 
 I am almost tempted to transcribe the whole of 
 my sermon here, and this, merely, I suppose, be- 
 cause I was pleased with it. It had been a pleasure, 
 perhaps a bitter pleasure to me to write and I had 
 taken great pains with it. 
 
 There is something poignant, a greater depth I 
 sometimes think, in pleasure that is bitter. For 
 much as I suffered when I thought what the result 
 
 287
 
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 of my sermon might be, yet I would not have fore- 
 gone that suffering for a world of pleasure that 
 was sweet. 
 
 I will not transcribe all that I prepared here. I 
 know it is only vanity which tempts me to do so, 
 that same vanity which makes me dream at times 
 of a day when I might contribute something to the 
 literature of my country. No one will ever see 
 these notes and so I can, without fear of misunder- 
 standing, say how proud I should be even to see a 
 
 288
 
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 book of my sermons reach the dignity of print. But 
 this is idle vanity, too. I can only quiet my con- 
 science with the thought that it is not often I give 
 way to it. 
 
 After I had made some reference to the actual 
 subject of the text, I turned into the wider and 
 truer motive of my discourse. 
 
 "Energy," said I, "is the gift of God " and 
 
 this I transcribe, just as I had written it. "It is 
 with energy a man obeys the word of God; it is 
 in sloth and laziness that he disregards it. Now 
 sloth and laziness, these are subtle things. I have 
 known the most noble sacrifice lead to idleness and 
 to the disregarding of the highest laws of God. 
 
 "It is to young men and to young women I am 
 speaking, those who, in their youth, have all that 
 energy which is meant for great and high en- 
 deavour." 
 
 I looked, as I said this, at young Allan and from 
 him my eyes turned to Diana in the choir. The 
 seeds of thought were already planted in their 
 minds. I knew even then that I had chosen right, 
 that in the end I should succeed. He was steadily 
 watching me from the pew where he sat and her 
 eyes were fixed upon a distance I have seen so often 
 
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 in Diana's face. It is where all her deepest thoughts 
 are treasured. 
 
 "Procrastination," I went on, "that is the sin of 
 the youth of the age; indeed perhaps it is the sin 
 of youth in every age. Yet youth is the time for 
 doing. In youth you give your energy that fresh 
 energy may come forth. In youth are your chil- 
 dren given you to keep alive the energy that was 
 yours." 
 
 " 'Rejoice, young man, in thy youth; .... 
 and walk in the ways of thine heart, and in the 
 sight of thine eyes' 
 
 "For it is in youth that the heart beats strong 
 that the sight of the eyes is clear. I am not speak- 
 ing now of the strength of virtue. At all times 
 shall a man be strong in that, but in youth alone is 
 it given to him to be strong in doing. Therefore I 
 would say to all you young men and all you young 
 women, lose none of the moments of your young 
 days. Sacrifice nothing but to that which is vigor- 
 ous, to that which calls for the energy of life which 
 God in your youth has given you." 
 
 Possibly my voice trembled as I said this, but I 
 know it was not the trembling of pain at the 
 thought of Diana's migration. She will go, too, 
 
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 with the swallows. Her wings are ready; she is 
 strong in the energy of youth. How could I dare 
 to regret it? 
 
 She was silent all the way back from church. It 
 was a silence I thought better not to disturb. Ex- 
 cept for her casual remarks, it was not until we 
 were half way through dinner that she spoke at all 
 of what was in her mind. 
 
 "Were you thinking of your sermon," she asked 
 me, "when you said that about the swallows this 
 morning ?" 
 
 "Very probably it was there in my thoughts," 
 said I. "Why do you ask?" 
 
 She shook her head and said no more. 
 
 Poor Diana! She is touching life for the first 
 time and, with the gentleness of women, is sore at 
 heart because she learns that in life there is always 
 someone who must be hurt and she it is must hurt 
 them.
 
 AUGUST 18
 
 MUST not let it hinder my obser- 
 vations when Diana is gone. Indeed 
 I have begun already to prepare my- 
 self for her going. Half the joy of 
 having eyes to see the beauties of 
 Nature, lies in showing them to 
 someone else. That much of the 
 child lives on in all of us. 
 When I was a boy, I would 
 show everything to my mother. 
 My father, doubtless, I thought 
 had seen them for himself. It 
 is always the women a man 
 would be teaching. It is always the woman by 
 whom he is taught. 
 
 The other day a most unusual incident came to 
 my notice. I have been too busy with a visit from 
 the Bishop to record it in my note-book before. In 
 a deep ditch that separates the land of two farmers 
 more than a mile from here, I heard the reeling note 
 of the grasshopper- warbler, a bird not often seen 
 in these parts. The peculiarity of this was the late- 
 20 295
 
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 ness of the year. I have never heard the note of 
 this bird a note so like the trilling of a fisherman's 
 reel, that here and in many parts of the country 
 they call it the reel-bird I have never heard it be- 
 fore, later than May or at the utmost the beginning 
 of June. 
 
 If it may be called singing, then he sings when 
 they are building their nest together. Timid little 
 creatures though they are, I have sometimes been 
 able to watch them so engaged, when with short 
 and apprehensive flights they traverse the whole 
 length of the hedges, keeping just the safe distance 
 from their observer and hiding in such a way as 
 makes it almost impossible to see them. But the 
 sound of his reeling will easily tell you of their 
 whereabouts, for he and his mate fly always close 
 together at the time of nesting. 
 
 He was alone when I saw him the other day, and 
 I can only account for the sound of his voice by the 
 supposition that they were late in building and his 
 mate was still sitting on the eggs. They should 
 have been hatched some time ago. 
 
 Naturally enough when I came home it was the 
 first thing I thought of saying to Diana, that I had 
 heard a grasshopper-warbler and so late as in the 
 
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 month of August. The words were almost on my 
 lips, when I thought of how soon there would be a 
 time when upon my return, I must keep such things 
 to myself. 
 
 "I will begin here and at once," I said to myself 
 and now, until I have had the opportunity of re- 
 cording it in my note-book, I have felt as though I 
 were shielding some secret from her and have 
 feared lest she should steal it away from me. 
 
 But to-day I have taken still another step. All 
 this week, her thoughts, I know, have been upon 
 the ideas generated in her mind by my sermon of 
 last Sunday. Half with pleasure, often with no 
 little sadness, I have watched in her the ripen- 
 ing of the seeds which I have sown. She says 
 things sometimes, sometimes asks me questions 
 which show me, more plainly than any confession 
 she could make, the unsettled condition of her 
 mind. 
 
 The other morning when we rose from prayers 
 and the servants had gone out of the room, she said, 
 
 "What would you think of a woman who had no 
 children?" 
 
 She often asks me questions like this, which 
 makes me think that Georgina must have found out 
 
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 much of the woman in me and left it there when 
 she died. 
 
 "It may not be her fault," said I. 
 
 "No but if it is." 
 
 "There may be pressing reasons," I replied 
 "She may be so poor that it would be hard to give 
 her children a fair chance in the world." 
 
 "You wouldn't blame her then?" 
 
 "No I shouldn't blame her. But the mercy of 
 God is always the wisdom of Nature. I should try 
 to make her see them as one and cultivate a faith 
 in them both." 
 
 Diana stirred her coffee round and round. At 
 last she looked up at me, 
 
 "Supposing she were not poor?" she asked. 
 
 "I'm old-fashioned, my dear," said I, "as no 
 doubt you know. In London and the big cities, I 
 believe, it is becoming fashionable to have no chil- 
 dren. They take up a woman's time. She has 
 other things to do. The need for amusement is 
 growing every day. The supply is increasing with 
 the demands. They tell me the Cremorne Gardens 
 at Battersea in London are drawing hundreds of 
 people there every night. New theatres are being 
 built. I wonder sometimes when I hear these things 
 
 298
 
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 how long it will be before there is scarcely a home 
 left in England. Life does not amuse people so 
 much as it did. In time the only things that will 
 amuse them will be amusements. In time we shall 
 come to be a great congregation of people, strug- 
 gling, fighting, straining to forget we are alive. 
 Not many women will care to have children then. 
 That indeed would remind them too much of life." 
 
 "Don't you think there is any excuse," she asked, 
 "for a woman who chooses to go without them?" 
 
 I looked across the table at her, knowing then 
 all she meant. 
 
 "None," I said quietly. "I could think of none. 
 As I said just now, there is a growing desire to 
 manufacture, to invent pleasures in life. But I am 
 sure that life contains enough pleasures already 
 made. To me, as you know, there are such pleas- 
 ures in Nature and in my work as make the days 
 well worth the living. And when you think of the 
 countless things in life besides just the birds 
 and this garden here in which I am interested, 
 doesn't it make you wonder why people should 
 strain and strive to manufacture interests for 
 themselves ?" 
 
 "Are you absolutely satisfied with the pleasures 
 299
 
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 that just the birds and the garden give you?" she 
 asked. 
 
 There was a note of intensity in her voice and I 
 knew quite well what was her meaning. 
 
 "Why, yes absolutely," said I. 
 
 "Don't / mean anything?" she asked. 
 
 I must admit that I was hard put to it then to 
 give such an answer as would not undo all the good 
 I had done. But I had no time to think. I must 
 say and at once, the first thing that came into my 
 mind. 
 
 300
 
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 "You mean, my dear," said I, "all the youth and 
 energy that I have left behind me." 
 
 It may not have been the answer that she wanted, 
 but it set her thinking once more, and so I left her 
 until this evening when I took the last step in the 
 course I had laid out for myself. 
 
 The darkness had set in with such a chilly wind 
 that we had the fire lighted in the drawing-room, 
 a thing I only remember doing once before 
 at this time of the year. When we were seated 
 there after our tea, I asked Diana to play the 
 preludes to me. I shall not hear them many more 
 times now. 
 
 There was one new one she had got in which I 
 had had no hand in acquiring. 
 
 "When did you do that one ?" I asked. 
 
 "About a week ago. Mr. Tregenna whistled it 
 for me while I took it down." 
 
 "I thought he didn't care for birds," said I. 
 
 "Oh, yes," she replied. "I think he does now. 
 He's caught it from you I expect." 
 
 "Well isn't that one a slight variation on the 
 blackcap ?" 
 
 She shook her head. 
 
 "We saw the bird," she said. "It was a grey- 
 301
 
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 green colour, with a whitish breast not quite 
 white; there was a sort of touch of rust about it." 
 
 "The garden-warbler," said I; "it does sing very 
 like the blackcap, too. Play it again, my dear." 
 
 She played it again. 
 
 "And now play them all again." 
 
 And she played them all again. 
 
 When she had finished, I bid her come and sit 
 beside me, for that there was something which I 
 had to say. 
 
 "I've been thinking," I began, "of what you are 
 going to do with yourself." 
 
 "Do with myself?" she repeated. 
 
 "Yes you've left school, but there is a great 
 deal more education you might learn. I'm not 
 going to flatter you, my dear, but your intelligence 
 is well above the ordinary. Look at those verses 
 you have written these preludes you have done, 
 all by yourself. Are you going to let your youth 
 go by without using the talents you have got?" 
 
 "Is that what you meant in your sermon," she 
 asked, "when you said that youth was the time for 
 doing?" 
 
 "Quite possibly it was," said I. "Now what I'm 
 going to suggest is this, that you go abroad for 
 
 302
 
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 some good time to finish your education; then, if 
 you should never marry which, my dear, I hope 
 one day perhaps you will then you, too, will have 
 interests in life when the energy of your youth is 
 gone." 
 
 She looked at me steadily for a while. 
 
 "How about you, Daddy?" she asked. ".What 
 are you going to do here all alone?" 
 
 "All alone!" I exclaimed. "With nearly seven 
 hundred people in the parish and more than a hun- 
 dred different sorts of birds in the woods. All 
 alone!" 
 
 "But I promised I'd never leave you," said she. 
 
 "You were only nineteen then," I reminded her. 
 
 "I'm only twenty now," said she. 
 
 "Yes, my dear, but in that one year you've be- 
 come a woman." 
 
 She looked at me as though she were frightened, 
 then suddenly she rose and left the room.
 
 AUGUST 20
 
 subterfuge has taken effect as 
 soon as this. While I was pre- 
 paring an address this morning, I 
 heard a sound out in the garden 
 and, looking up, I saw Allan out- 
 side the window. 
 
 "Could you spare me a few 
 moments?" he asked, and I knew 
 
 I 
 
 then that for me the days of Diana's companionship 
 were numbered. I smiled when I thought how that 
 she had been unable to tell me herself and, from the 
 look in his face, I knew that Allan was trembling 
 at the thought of all that lay before him. 
 
 "Come inside," said I, "or would you sooner that 
 we talked out there?" 
 
 "I think out here," said he, and I came out into 
 the garden where we sat beneath the mulberry tree. 
 
 For some moments he worried with his fingers, 
 pulling to pieces a blade of corn that he had picked 
 on his way up to the vicarage. 
 
 "I don't quite know how to begin," said he. 
 
 "Begin anywhere," said I. 
 37
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 "Well," he continued, "in your sermon the Sun- 
 day before last, you talked about youth. Perhaps 
 I didn't rightly gather what you meant, but it 
 seemed to me that you suggested a man should 
 marry when he was young; that that when she 
 
 was young " he had destroyed the blade of 
 
 corn; now he was pulling nervously at the empty 
 husks. And how I liked him for his timidity! 
 "That when she was young a woman should 
 should have children." 
 
 "I did mean that," said I. 
 
 He jumped at my admission. 
 
 "Well don't you think," he went on and without 
 hesitation now, "don't you think that besides youth 
 and the children she has in youth, a woman should 
 love and be loved in her youth?" 
 
 I thought of Georgina. 
 
 "A man may love when he is old," said I. 
 
 "Yes yes I know but when he's young, 
 surely love is more more wonderful then?" 
 
 I shook my head. 
 
 "Some things can be always wonderful," I re- 
 plied. "But I know well, my dear boy, what you 
 mean. In youth, love is a budding tree the sap is 
 alive in all its branches it stretches out its arms 
 
 308
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 to the sun. That's what you mean. But the tree 
 bears fruit as time goes on and that is wonderful, 
 too; and in the Autumn we shall see such colours 
 on that beech tree as will fill your eyes with wonder. 
 But I know well what you mean. With you it is 
 the budding time, and all the blood is warm and 
 tingling in your veins. And every time you see my 
 Diana, you feel like the tree stretching out its arms 
 to the sun." 
 
 In complete amazement, he asked me how I knew. 
 
 "Turn your head slowly/' said I, "and look up 
 at that window above the porch." 
 
 Notwithstanding my warning, he turned it far 
 too swiftly and all that we saw was the flutter of 
 a curtain as it fell back into place.
 
 SEPTEMBER 27 
 
 21
 
 HE swallows are congregating 
 on the ridge tiles. Early 
 next month Diana will be 
 gone.
 
 OCTOBER
 
 IANA was married this morning. 
 I think my voice was quite 
 steady as I read the service; 
 perhaps it was not quite so 
 steady as I spoke just those few 
 words to them from the altar 
 when they were man and wife. 
 This is a custom I always adhere 
 to, notwithstanding that there 
 are some today who ask me to 
 dispense with it. Even this 
 morning, when an excusable 
 emotion made me fear that my voice might play me 
 false, I would not depart from it. 
 
 "My dear children," I said and I addressed 
 them as though they were both standing beside me 
 in my study "you are going to a far country, but 
 you are taking with you that love and affection 
 which is the certain message of God. And so long 
 as you hold faithfully and in all happiness to the 
 one, no power on earth can make you forget the 
 other."
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 I had meant to say more than this, but something 
 that was not tears, for my eyes were dry, swelled 
 in my throat and all the words I had to say were 
 choked by it. So I just laid my hands on their 
 heads, and in my heart I said, "May the peace 
 of God which passeth all understanding keep 
 your hearts and minds in the knowledge and 
 love of God and of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord 
 Amen." 
 
 Before they took their final departure, Diana put 
 her hand in my arm and asked me to come round 
 the garden with her for the last time. The tears 
 were falling fast from her eyes as we walked. I 
 think they must have been perilously near my eyes, 
 too, but when we came to the little cross under the 
 apple tree where the bullfinch was buried, I could 
 not help smiling as I stopped and, in silence pointed 
 it out to her. 
 
 "Love begins in strange ways, my dear," said I. 
 And then, as I said that, a house-martin flew over 
 our heads that agitated flight which comes to all 
 the birds just previous to migration. It is the same 
 agitation, I suppose, as was drawing the tears from 
 Diana's eyes. I turned her round that she might 
 see it before it wheeled away over the housetop. 
 
 318
 
 "For the last time.'
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 " 'You can hear the South Winds calling'," said 
 I, " 'and the swallow hears them, too.' ' 
 
 Then she looked up at me and, with her eyes still 
 full of tears, "Daddy did you guess?" said she. 
 
 "It's all guessing when it's a woman," said I. 
 
 I did not tell her how soon I had guessed. I did 
 not tell her how much sooner I might have guessed 
 than I did. We just walked then in silence through 
 the garden, visiting every corner we knew well, re- 
 calling, as though by tacit understanding, all the 
 memories which they contained. At last I led her 
 back to the house, it was more than I could bear. 
 Every moment cried out to me that it was the last 
 and almost in bitterness, there came into my mind 
 the wish that it was all over, that I were alone to 
 face the empty rooms, the empty garden by myself. 
 
 When finally they set off in the chaise to meet the 
 coach where it halts on the main road some four 
 miles south of Bramlingham, I stood at the gate 
 with the rest of our wedding guests, waving my 
 handkerchief as though it were the most ordinary 
 wedding in the world. 
 
 As soon as in common politeness I could leave 
 them, I returned to the house. Everywhere there 
 were the signs of the festivities that had taken 
 
 321
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 place, but the house itself was silent and empty. 
 Even the servants were now making a holiday of 
 the occasion and I was quite alone. 
 
 First one room I looked into and then into an- 
 other. Everywhere it was silent. The piano was 
 still open in the drawing-room where, the evening 
 before, Diana had played the preludes to me for the 
 last time. Upstairs in her bedroom was a satin bow 
 which she had left behind. I picked it up and put 
 it in my pocket. 
 
 Because of the excitement of that day I suppose, 
 her bed had not been made. The clothes were 
 thrown back as she had left them in the morning 
 when she rose. Her room is next to mine. I have 
 often heard her singing in the morning as she 
 dressed her hair. Shall I ever hear her sing again ? 
 They have promised to return. But I have looked 
 often at the atlas and California is a long way away. 
 
 I did not touch the bed clothes. I left them as 
 they were and, crossing the landing, I opened the 
 door of the room where Georgina died. 
 
 "Death cannot be the end," said I, and I closed 
 the door behind me. 
 
 Everything was in darkness for the curtains were 
 drawn. I walked across the room and pulled them ; 
 
 322
 
 THE OPEN WINDOW 
 
 then I undid the catch and threw open the window 
 wide. The warm sunshine beat down upon my 
 face, the far country was pale in a haze of Autumn 
 heat, but the birds were silent. There was not even 
 the voice of a robin to break the stillness of the 
 country side. But they will sing again. They will 
 sing again next year. 
 
 (i)
 
 DEC 101986 
 
 Due Two WeaVs FromD^e o<
 
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 +.-JJ. U1 '44 8270 
 
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