s that made the ground white
all under those thorns. The birds that lived by the haws in winter were
prodigious. That cottage stood, as near as I can tell, where Grey and
Rowland's great granary is now. There used to be much swine in the
woods then; and many's the time they have thrown me down when I was a
young thing getting acorns. That was about the time of my hearing the
first music I ever heard--unless you call the singing of the birds music
(we had plenty of that), and the bells on the breeze from a distance,
when the wind was south. The first music (so to call it) that I heard
was from a blind fiddler that came to us. What brought him, I don't
know--whether he lost his way, or what; but he lost his way after he
left us. His dog seems to have been in fault: but he got into a pool in
the middle of the wood, and there he lay drowned, with one foot up on
the bank, when I went to see what the harking of the dog could be about.
He clutched his fiddle in drowning; and I remember I tried to get the
music out of it as it lay wet and broken on the bank, while father was
saying the poor soul must have been under the water now two days. So I
have reason to remember the first music I heard."

"You have got him talking now," said the grandchild, running off; and
presently the owls were heard hooting again.

"Whereabouts was this pool?" asked Margaret.

"It is a deep part of the brook, that in hot summers is left a pond. It
is there that the chief of the sliding goes on in winter now, in the
meadow. It is meadow now; but then the deer used to come down through
the wood to drink at the brook there. That is how the village got its
name."

"So you remember the time when the deer came down to drink at the brook!
How many things have happened since then! You have heard a great deal
of music since those days."

"Ay, there has been a good deal of fiddling at our weddings since that.
And we have had recruiting parties through in war times."

"And many a mother singing to her baby; and the psalm in the church for
so many years! Yes, the place has been full of music for long; but it
seems likely to be silent enough now."

"I began to think I should be left the last, as I was the first," said
the old man: "but they say the sickness is abating now, and that several
are beginning to recover. Pray God it may be so! First, after the wood
was somewhat cleared, there was a labourer's cottage or two--now
standing empty, an