"I did name it," he returned, "that's a thrush."
It was a nightingale, a bird he did not know. But he knew a thrush - it
was one of the four birds he knew, and he stuck to it that it was a
thrush singing. Afterwards he pointed out the squalid-looking cottage
he lived in. It was on the estate of a great lady.
"Tell me," I said, "is she much liked on the estate?"
He pondered the question for a few moments, then replied, "Some likes
her and some don't," and not a word more would he say on that subject.
A curious amalgam of stupidity and shrewdness; a bad observer of bird-
life, but a cautious little person in answering leading questions; he
was evidently growing up (or not doing so) in the wrong place.
Going out for a stroll in the evening, I came to a spot where two small
cottages stood on one side of the road, and a large pond fringed with
rushes and a coppice on the other. Just by the cottage five boys were
amusing themselves by throwing stones at a mark, talking, laughing and
shouting at their play. Not many yards from the noisy boys some fowls
were picking about on the turf close to the pond; presently out of the
rushes came a moorhen and joined them.
