In the end I did not say
good-bye to the village on that day, but settled down to
listen to the tales of my landlady, or rather to another
instalment of her life-story and to further chapters in the
domestic history of those five small villages in one. I had
already been listening to her every evening, and at odd times
during the day, for over a week, at first with interest, then
a little impatiently. I was impatient at being kept in, so to
speak. Out-of-doors the world was full of light and heat,
full of sounds of wild birds and fragrance of flowers and
new-mown hay; there were also delightful children and some
that were anything but delightful--dirty, ragged little
urchins of the slums. For even these small rustic villages
have their slums; and it was now the time when the young birds
were fluttering out of their nests--their hunger cries could
be heard everywhere; and the ragged little barbarians were
wild with excitement, chasing and stoning the flutterers to
slay them; or when they succeeded in capturing one without
first having broken its wings or legs it was to put it in a
dirty cage in a squalid cottage to see it perish miserably in
a day or two. Perhaps I succeeded in saving two or three
threatened lives in the lanes and secret green places by the
stream; perhaps I didn't; but in any case it was some
satisfaction to have made the attempt.
Now all this made me a somewhat impatient listener to the
village tales--the old unhappy things, for they were mostly
old and always unhappy; yet in the end I had to listen.
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