God
may forgive us our trespasses by marvelous slow ways; but we cannot always
forgive them ourselves.
The other thing came out of a less personal greed, and was years later:
Arthur and I were collecting eggs, and in the loft over one of the
out-houses there was a swallow's nest too high up to be reached by any
ladder we could get up there. I was intent on getting the _eggs_, and
thought of no other thing that might chance: so I spread a soft fall
below, and with a long pole I broke the floor of the nest. Then with a
sudden stir of horror I saw soft things falling along with the clay,
tiny and feathery. Two were killed by the breakage that fell with them,
but one was quite alive and unhurt. I gathered up the remnants of the
nest and set it with the young one in it by the loft window where the
parent-birds might see, making clumsy strivings of pity to quiet my
conscience. The parent-birds did see, soon enough: they returned, first
up to the rafters, then darting round and round and crying; then to
where their little one lay helpless and exposed, hung over it with a
nibbling movement of their beaks for a moment, making my miserable heart
bound up with hope: then away, away, shrieking into the July sunshine.
Once they came back, and shrieked at the horror of it all, and fled away
not to return.
I remained for hours and did whatever silly pity could dictate: but of
course the young one died: and I--_cleared away all remains that nobody
might see_! And that I gave up egg-collecting after that was no penance,
but choice.
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