l by
the strength of all mediocrities and majorities; all the dainty families
of finches in their gay apparellings; the plain brown bird that filled
the night with music; the gorgeous oriole ruffling in gold, the gilded
princeling of them all; the little blue warblers, the violets of the
air; the kingfishers who had hovered so long over the forget-me-nots
upon the rivers that they had caught the colours of the flowers on their
wings; the bright blackcaps green as the leaves, with their yellow
waistcoats and velvet hoods, the innocent freebooters of the woodland
liberties: all these were her friends and lovers, various as any human
crowds of court or city.

She loved them; they and the fourfooted beasts were the sole things that
did not flee from her; and the woeful and mad slaughter of them by the
peasants was to her a grief passionate in its despair. She did not
reason on what she felt; but to her a bird slain was a trust betrayed,
an innocence defiled, a creature of heaven struck to earth.

Suddenly on the silence of the garden there was a little shrill sound of
pain; the birds flew high in air, screaming and startled; the leaves of
a bough of ivy shook as with a struggle.

She rose and looked; a line of twine was trembling against the foliage;
in its noosed end the throat of the mavis had been caught; it hung
trembling and clutching at the air convulsively with its little drawn-up
feet. It had flown into the trap as it had ended its joyous song and
soared up to join its brethren.

There were a score of such traps set in the miller's garden.

She unloosed the cord from about its tiny neck, set it free, and laid it
down upon the ivy. The succour came too late; the little gentle body was
already without breath; the feet had ceased to beat the air; the small
soft head had drooped feebly on one side; the lifeless eyes had started
from their sockets; the throat was without song for evermore.

"The earth would be good but for men," she thought, as she stood with
the little dead bird in her hand.

Its mate, which was poised on a rose bough, flew straight to it, and
curled round and round about the small slain body, and piteously
bewailed its fate, and mourned, refusing to be comforted, agitating the
air with trembling wings, and giving out vain cries of grief.

Vain; for the little joyous life was gone; the life that asked only of
God and Man a home in the green leaves; a drop of dew from the cup of a
rose; a bough