I replied that that was not strange, since it is impossible for us not to love whatever is lovely, and of all living things birds were made most beautiful.
Then I walked away, but could not forget the words she had exclaimed, her whole appearance, the face flushed with color, the eloquent brown eyes sparkling, the pressed palms, the sudden spontaneous passion of delight and desire in her tone. The picture was in my mind all that day, and lived through the next, and so wrought on me that I could not longer keep away from the birds, which I, too, loved; for now all at once it seemed to me that life was not life without them; that I was grown sick, and all my senses dim; that only the wished sight of wild birds could medicine my vision; that only by drenching it in their wild melody could my tired brain recover its lost vigour.
After wandering somewhat aimlessly about the country for a couple of days, I stumbled by chance on just such a spot as I had been wishing to find--a rustic village not too far away. It was not more than twenty-five minutes' walk from a small station, less than one hour by rail from London.
The way to the village was through cornfields, bordered by hedges and rows of majestic elms. Beyond it, but quite near, there was a wood, principally of beech, over a mile in length, with a public path running through it. On the right hand, ten minutes' walk from the village, there was a long green hill, the ascent to which was gentle; but on the further side it sloped abruptly down to the Thames.
On the left hand there was another hill, with cottages and orchards, with small fields interspersed on the slope and summit, so that the middle part, where I lodged, was in a pretty deep hollow. There was no sound of traffic there, and few farmers' carts came that way, as it was well away from the roads, and the deep, narrow, winding lanes were exceedingly rough, like the stony beds of dried-up streams.
In the deepest part of the coombe, in the middle of the village, there was a well where the cottagers drew their water; and in the summer evenings the youths and maidens came there, with or without jugs and buckets, to indulge in conversation, which was mostly of the rustic, bantering kind, mixed with a good deal of loud laughter. Close by was the inn, where the men sat on benches in the tap-room in grave discourse over their pipes and beer.