thatch the colour of a donkey's hide. There were small
windows under the overhanging eaves, a pathway of irregular flat
stones ran up to the doorway, and a bit of low wall divided the tiny
garden from the river. The Plum Tree grew just beside the wall, so
near indeed that it could look at itself on spring days when the water
was like a mirror. In autumn the branches on that side of the tree
were the first to be shaken, lest any of the fruit should fall down
and be lost. Sometimes a village child treading cautiously on bare
toes amongst the stones along the narrow margin, would pounce upon a
plum with a squeal of joy, for although the village was surrounded
with orchards, the fruit of Mrs. Prettyman's tree had a flavour all
its own.

The tree had been given to her by a nephew who was a gardener in a
great fruit orchard in the North, and her husband had planted and
tended it for years. It began life as a slender thing with two or
three rods of branches, that looked as if the first wind of winter
would blow it away, but before the storms came, it had begun to
trust itself to the new earth, and to root itself with force and
determination. There were good soil and water near it, and plenty of
sunshine, and, as is the way of Nature, it set itself to do its own
business at all seasons, unlike the distracted heart of man. The
traffic of the river came and went; around the headland the big
ships were steering in, or going out to sea; and in the village
the human life went on while the Plum Tree grew high enough to look
over the wall. Its stem by that time had a firm footing; next it took
a charming bend to the side, and then again threw out new branches
in that direction. It turned itself from the prevailing wind, throwing
a new grace into its attitude, and went on growing; returning in
blossom and leaves and fruit an hundredfold for all that it received
from the earth and the sun.

In spring it was enchanting; at first, before the blossoms came out,
with small bright leaves, and buds like pearls, heaped upon the
branches; then, later, when the whole tree was white, imaged like a
bride, in the looking-glass of the river. It only wanted a nightingale
to sing in it by moonlight. There were no nightingales there, but the
thrushes sang in the dawning, and the little birds whose voices were
sweet and thin chirruped about it in crowds, while the larks, trilling
out the ardour of mating time, sometimes rose from their nests in the