It had been windy up to then, he said, but not too strong. Then suddenly there came a roaring as if a train was bearing down on the house, which stood alone. Outside, trees were bending and birdfeeders hanging from the branches of a stout hawthorn were flying up at diverse angles, some almost upside down. There is a balcony to the house - would it hold? Would the roof itself hold? It was terrifying in its suddenness and uniqueness. Then the roaring died away and it was just your normal windy day. Was that what is known as a twister, he asked? Something like it had done what was an inexplicable trick of Nature on him already; indeed just a few months before. A freak, which no expert could explain to him.
About 20 years before, he and two others had planted a neat little grove of some 30 trees in a sheltered triangle made by two converging high hedges mounted on ditches. The plot faced west. There were birch and pine in more or less the same proportion. All thrived, for the land, gently sloping, had earlier been watered by a small stream which had dried up. The triangle faced west, cosily protected. Then, just a few months ago, there came a rush of wind, or a twister or whatever is the name for that selective sudden blast such as was experienced in the opening incident of this item. One tree, a pine, was the only casualty. Snapped off below the half-way point. And it the most sheltered tree of all, snug there in the corner. If it had been in the front row you could understand it, he said, but the most sheltered of all. Explain that to me. The answer to that is just: it happened. No wonder the poets are all fascinated by the winds: "The winds that will be howling at all hours", according to Wordsworth, and likewise any rhymer you can think of. There are also soft soothing winds. But the winds around that house caused the owners to think again about trees near to them. In different ways. For example, that spruce right up against the south wall. Is it safe? Does it run long roots? Could they eat into the foundations? There are, to be sure, rat-holes nearby. The only ones around. At least there are no cherry trees. For they have seen a cherry in another garden, send up a sucker 20 feet away, having gone under flagstones all the way. Plant trees, but judge you distance. The winds you can do nothing about.