“Let one be ever so inoffensive, however, one is not long left in peace in this world, even in a wood.  The thrush sang too loudly of his simple happiness, and some boys from the town heard him and snared him, and took him away in a dirty cloth cap, where he was nearly smothered.  The world is certainly not exclusively composed of sunshine, and green woods, and odorous pines.  He became almost senseless during the hot dusty walk that led to the town.  It was a seaport town, about two miles from the wood, a town of narrow, steep streets, picturesque old houses, and odours compounded of tar, dead fish, and many other scents less agreeable than forest perfumes.  The thrush was put into a small wicker-cage in an upper room, in one of the narrowest and steepest of the streets. “‘I shall die to-night,’ he piped.  But he did not.  He lived that night, and for several nights and days following.  The boys took small care of him, however.  He was often left without food, without water, and always with too little air.  Two or three times they tried to sell him, but he was not bought, for no one could hear him sing.  One day he was hung outside the window, and partly owing to the sun and fresh air, and partly because a woman was singing in the street, he began to carol his old song.

“The woman was a street singer.  She was even paler, thinner, and more destitute-looking than such women usually are.  In some past time there had been beauty and feeling in her face, but the traces of both were well-nigh gone.  An indifference almost amounting to vacancy was there now, and, except that she sang, you might almost have fancied her a corpse.  In her voice, also, there had once been beauty and feeling, and here again the traces were small indeed.  From time to time, she was stopped by fits of coughing, when an ill-favoured hunchback, who accompanied her on a tambourine, swore and scowled at her.  She sang a song of sentiment, with a refrain about

     ’Love and truth,
     And joys of youth—­’

on which the melody dwelt and quavered as if in mockery.  As she sang, a sailor came down the street.  His collar was very large, his trousers were very wide, his hat hung on the back of his head more as an ornament than for shelter; and he had one of the roughest faces and the gentlest hearts that ever went together since Beauty was entertained by the Beast.  His hands were in his pockets, where he could feel one shilling and a penny, all the spare cash that remained to him after a friendly stroll through the town.  When he saw the street singer, he stopped, pulled off his hat, and scratched his head, as was his custom when he was puzzled or interested.

“‘It’s no good keeping an odd penny,’ he said to himself; ’poor thing, she looks bad enough!’ And, bringing the penny to the surface out of the depths of his pocket, he gave it to the woman.  The hunchback came forward to take it, but the sailor passed him with a shove of his elbow, and gave it to the singer, who handed it over to her companion without moving a feature, and went on with her song.