On another occasion, when I had the honour to accompany her on her walk, we heard the raucous note of a bird from somewhere away in the meadows.
“I bet you don’t know what that is!” said I, to test her knowledge; but she answered quite easily—
“It’s a partridge.”
“No,” said I, a little disappointed at her mistake, “that’s a pheasant.”
“Oh, the same thing,” said Bellwattle, unperturbed.
“Of course; they both begin with a P,” said I.
And then she looked at me out of the corner of her eyes and blinked. I thank God I did not smile. She would never have believed in me again.
But it is when Bellwattle puts out her gentle hand to help Nature in her schemes that I think she is most lovable of all. This is the way with all true women when they love Nature for Nature’s sake. In fact, it sometimes seems to me, when I watch Bellwattle forestalling God at every turn, that she is Eve incarnate, the mother of all living. For to see her in the garden and the country, you would feel that she almost believes she has suffered the labours of maternity for every single thing that lives, from the first snowdrop opening its eyes to the spring to the last little tremulous calf, with its quaking knees, which the old cow in the farmyard presents to our neighbour over the way.
“The poor wee mite,” she says, and she gives it the tips of her fingers with which to ease its toothless gums.