A gentleman
has a lovely place not far from us, where the trees have been spared by
a miracle. Nightingales seldom wander so far north, but a few years ago
a stray one was heard there, and the wonder and the beauty of its voice
brought hundreds from the mills and crowded streets to hear it sing.
Special trains were run from the neighbouring city to accommodate the
crowds that came nightly to wait in the moonlight and listen; and an
enterprising trader set up a stall, and sold gingerbeer. The story ends
there, but I like it, don't you? especially the gingerbeer part of it.
It was told me by one who remembers the circumstance.
"My greatest pleasure in life is in my flowers, they are dearer to me
than any I ever had before, because they are all so delicate, and
require such infinite care and tenderness to keep them alive in this
uncongenial climate. I have my thrushes also--two, which I stole from
a nest in a wood one moonlight night, and brought up by hand on bread
and milk and scraped beef. I had to get up at daylight, and feed them
every hour until dark; but the clergy will not allow that this
obligation was a proper excuse for staying away from church, and just
now I am unhappy in the feeling that their religion must be inhuman.
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