Country Life
IT began to rain during the afternoon. At first I was happy about the downpour. I could imagine it swelling the little streams that run into the lake. I could almost see the fish coming up to feed on the following day. All that was needed was a bit of cloud, a light wind and a suggestion of sun in the background. At midnight it was still raining. In the morning the rain was singing among the laurels, spattering on the sycamores, saturating the yews and flooding down the tiles and overflowing the gutter. My visions of catching trout faded. To venture out in such weather was too much like , hardship even for an enthusiast. The rain continued all morning and part of the afternoon. When it had lasted a generous twenty-four hours it began to abate. I could see that the grass had grown an inch and the weeds were bigger and more flourishing than ever. One casualty of this rainstorm grieved me. The tits that had hatched down the ventilator pipe at the cottage were flooded and drowned. When I peered down the pipe a day later there was no sound of young birds and a bluebottle flew up in my face. In a little while the youngsters would have been able to come up the pipe and fend for themselves. It seemed a very cruel tragedy, this thing brought about by the first heavy rain for weeks.
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