Tales of the birds

Flip said no more; but he formed a strong opinion about Twinkle, and felt that he did not care for his company any longer. Watching his opportunity, while the other was at work on a fly, he flitted quietly into the thick of the alders on the other side of the round pond, and taking a perch right down in the roots by the water, began to give vent to his own sorrow by uttering a sad cheep every minute or two. Poor Pipi, the kindest and the cleverest of them all! always helping some one, and always in good humour! never without some little fun of his own, even in the most awkward moments! How could they possibly get back again to Africa, when the summer was over, without Pipi? How indeed would Flip have the heart to sing to his wife during the nesting-time, unless Pipi’s voice was heard from the next tree? Pipi was always singing, and his voice was the best of all: for while the others were always finding their voices go up with a turn at the end of their strain, like those commonplace chaffinches, Pipi almost always brought down his in a perfect cadence, which is the great accomplishment of a willow-warbler. And when the young were fledged, no young father of a brood was so careful or so beloved as Pipi. He did not leave all the work to his wife, as some did; Mrs. Pipi had been hard-worked ever since they built their nest at the foot of the big elm-tree, and now she was sent off every day in the early morning to eat her fill of insects in a neighbouring garden, with a special warning to beware of the old gray cat, who was always creeping about between the pea-rows. Then Pipi used to take the young ones under his own charge, and put off his own breakfast till he had fed them well, popping the food into their gaping beaks as fast as if his wife had been there to help him. What fun he used to make of them! Flip remembered how he was once sitting on a bough, singing to his own wife, who had not yet hatched all her eggs, when he saw Pipi trying to entice his young ones out of the nest. They all came out at last, except Dot the youngest, who sat at the door of the nest, and looked through the buttercup stems into the wide world with fearful and restless eyes. Pipi tried all he could to make her come out; he perched on the bough above her and sang his best, so that her little black eyes twinkled, for she knew that music well; but still she hesitated. Then he picked up a little green caterpillar and put it down just in front of her; her bill opened wide at the sight of such a juicy morsel, but still she did not come. Just then a snail came slowly by, with its shell on its back.

“Dot,” said Pipi, “do you see that creature with his nest on his back? Shall I tell you why he must always carry it? When he was a nestling, he wouldn’t come out of his nest like the others; so at last the nest stuck to him, and he carries it to this day, and always will. So take care the same thing doesn’t happen to you, Dot – I rather think I see your back beginning to stick to that bit of moss; and if you don’t make haste – ” But before he could finish the sentence, the horror-stricken Dot was out of the nest; and in another minute she was on a twig beside him.

Recollections like these passed through poor Flip’s clouded mind, as he lurked in the stems of the alder-root. But after a while, as the wind went down, he bestirred himself, and flying up to the top of the alder, began to look about him. There was the sea, and there the little gap, with the stream, where he had landed: and there, right above it, on a headland, was the lighthouse. It would not take long to get there, and he felt that he must go and find out if anything was to be seen of poor Pipi. A flight would do him good, and there were plenty of hedges to rest on. So after a number of quick low flights from hedge to hedge and tree to tree, he came to the front of the lighthouse, and sank rather tired into the long grass where Twinkle had landed in the night. Peeping out after a while, he flew about a little, searching for poor Pipi’s body: but nothing was to be seen of it. Then, taking courage, he flew up on to the platform in front of the light, on which Twinkle had described Pipi’s falling, but neither here was there a trace to be seen of Pipi.

Just as he was going to fly off he heard a voice inside the lantern-room, and listened, for birds can understand all languages.

“Well, Peter,” said the voice, “what did you get in last night’s gale? The warblers ought to be coming now; we have had the chiffchaffs and the wheatears, and a few redstarts; who are the next earliest this year?”

Flip peeped in at a corner of the window; it was dangerous, but he might see or hear something of Pipi. The man who had spoken was a tall, hale, and hearty looking old gentleman, with a face glowing with its own good-nature as well as with the blustering of the gale. He was answered by the lighthouse-man, who wore an oilskin hat, and was short and weather-beaten.

“Good afternoon, Professor,” he said, as he put his hand into a deep pocket of his overcoat, “I’ve a thing or two for you this time; sure to get something in a gale like that, though for the matter of that a calm night suits ’em better. We’ll have more to-night again, I’ll answer for it. Here they be: some of ’em knocked agen the window and fell on the platform (Flip felt his ears tingling and his brain swimming); some on ‘em were blowed right away and we couldn’t find ’em. Wrens we calls ’em here, though they ben’t just like our jenny wrens, all the same,” said he, as he pulled out a number of little birds and laid them on the table.

Flip shuddered; he recognized his kindred, but their eyes were closed, their heads hung down, and their feathers lay loose and heavy: there was no telling one from another, especially at his distance from the table. Still, he had no doubt in his mind that Pipi was among them.

“Willow-wrens, if you like,” said the Professor; “willow-warblers, I like to call them; Phylloscopus trochilus is the scientific name, and you will find all about them in that book of mine I gave you, at page 432. A redstart too, I see, poor fellow; so much the worse for somebody’s garden or field this next May or June. But now, where’s the diary; let us have them all down – wind, what was it, south-east by south?”

“That’s it, sir,” said the lighthouse-man; and they sat down together at the table, and began to turn the birds over one by one. Flip watched till they came to the last, in the dim expectation of recognizing Pipi; but it was impossible, for the dead eyes showed no traces of their luckless owner’s identity. It was a mournful scene, and Flip was just about to take flight, when he heard Peter’s voice again.

“There be another on ’em down stairs, Professor,” he said; “he were only stunned like, and my missus said as she’d keep un a bit, and see if he’d come to life again.”

Flip’s feathers stood on end with excitement.

“Missus,” called out Peter, putting his head out of the door, “what ha’ you done with that bit of a wren as I give you this marnin’?”

“Putten him in the old canary cage, and given him some crumbs and milk,” said the wife from below; “but he won’t touch neither of ’em, and he’s as bad as can be. Ask the Professor gentleman if he’ll come down and see him.”

Thereupon the Professor and Peter went down stairs, and Flip could hear no more. He felt sick at heart. Even if this was Pipi, it was clear enough he was going to die. If he got nothing better than crumbs and milk, how in the name of all that’s feathered was he going to live? “What stupid creatures these men-folks are!” thought Flip; and perhaps he was not far wrong. But he did not know what a professor meant, and he was not aware that the genial old gentleman from the distant University knew almost as much about the food of willow-warblers as he did himself.

Flip flew round to the back of the lighthouse, and looking in through the window, he saw the Professor sitting by the fire with something in his hand. But his back was turned to the window, and Flip could not see what it was. The woman was looking over the Professor’s shoulder, and a small bird-cage stood on the table, the sight of which made Flip tremble all over. At last the Professor put down on the table the thing he had in his hand: it was a willow-warbler, still alive, for the beak was slowly opening and shutting; but the eyes were closed, and it was evidently dying. Flip could not tell whether or no it were Pipi; the room was now getting dark, and the window was away from the sun. But it was no use waiting any longer; Flip felt sure the bird must die, and even if it did not, it would be put into the cage to pine away for want of air and proper food; and after all, how was he to tell that Pipi was not among the dead birds up stairs? So he flew away with an aching heart, feeling that there was nothing left to do, but to try and forget all about it. “And yet,” thought poor Flip, as he reached the little pond once more, “I can try and remember what poor Pipi used to do, and how good-natured and cheerful he was; and so far as there ever can be another Pipi, I will be he.”

The willow-warblers do not all take flight together to their inland haunts after their arrival from the sea, but work their way gradually through woods and hedges, refreshing and strengthening themselves as they go. The party to which Flip and Twinkle belonged had not far to go to get to the meadow by the brook, of which Pipi had reminded Twinkle on the fishing-smack – the meadow where they themselves had reared their brood last year, and close to another, not less delicious, where they themselves had been born. In two or three days they had reached it, and soon began to exercise their voices, so as to be ready for the arrival of the hen birds, who always come a few days later. This year the weather continued cold and stormy, with strong April showers, and the hens did not come for a day or two later than usual. What excitement there was when they arrived at last, straggling in by twos and threes along the bushes that grew by the brook’s edge, so as to keep sheltered from the wind! Flip went down the willows to meet them, and asked each one whether she had come by the lighthouse, or seen anything of Pipi; but the hens were either too tired or too excited to pay much attention to him.

“That is not the way to welcome us,” they said; “accidents must happen, and must be forgotten. No, we saw nothing of Pipi. Why don’t you sing, instead of telling us sad tales?” And on they went into the meadow, where the songs of the cock birds were calling them.

One well-known song was missing from the tall elm by the brook-side; and Flip, in spite of his excitement in singing, and his hopes that his courtship might be successful with a certain little brown member of a last year’s brood, could not help thinking now and then, with a heavy heart, of Pipi the best of singers, and of all the happiness they might have had but for that unlucky lighthouse. Twinkle too would sometimes remind him of his sorrow in

his blunt and selfish way, and Flip felt his company still so unpleasant that he moved to a tree further up the brook.

One day, not long after the arrival of the hens, when Flip had made sure of his little spouse, and they were flying after one another from tree to tree round the field, then into another field and another, in loving chase, Flip caught a low song that made him stop instantly and perch. It sounded again from a low willow, and then Flip could see the singer moving about inside the tree, where the leaves were just beginning to appear. In another moment a willow-warbler fluttered out; its flight was feeble, and as it perched again, Flip could see that it held on with some difficulty to the twig, for its right leg was injured. But it was Pipi!

Yes, it was Pipi beyond all doubt; and Flip, glued to his bough by amazement, gave out such a strain of song as he had never in his whole life before been able to produce. Pipi looked up and saw Flip; in an instant they were together, and in such a state of tremor and delight, that poor Mrs. Flip was left quite out in the cold, and became for the first time in her life jealous of a cock bird.

“Never mind me,” said Pipi at last; “look at me, Mrs. Flip, a poor wreck, with a bruised bill, and a game leg, and only half a song: who could be jealous of me? Leave off fluttering round poor Flip, and let me tell him my story, and then you shall have him all to yourself.”

So Mrs. Flip perched quietly on a bough hard by, for she was a sensible bird, or she would not have married Flip; and she had so often heard him talk of Pipi that she felt he must want sadly to hear the story.

Then Pipi told how he had suddenly come upon the light, and then lost all his senses as suddenly; how, when he came to himself, he was in a horrible cage, with nothing fit to eat, even if he could have eaten it; how the Professor had taken him in his hand and stroked him softly, and then had bound up his leg without hurting him a bit; how he had told Peter’s wife to keep Pipi warm, and to get some insects off the trees for him if he got any better. And then how he felt the warmth slowly reviving the life within him, and how he began to flutter a little about the room, and was very nearly caught by the cat, and then put into the cage out of her reach; how Peter brought a great piece of willow-bough, as the Professor had told him, on which Pipi had contrived to find a few insects; and how, as strength returned, a great desire grew within him to get away to the meadow and the brook, and he fluttered so much that his feathers began to fall out, and he could take no more food. And lastly, how Peter’s good wife had taken the cage into the garden and opened the door, and how he had made his way, slowly and wearily, to the old summer home.

“And now you know all about it,” he said, and sang one strain with something like the old force. “Let us go and find old Blossom,” said he, “and see if his tale is equal to mine. And Twinkle too – poor grumpy Twinkle; I shall never be able to hold up my head before him any more, and he will be more unpleasant than ever. But after all,” he went on after a moment, “Twinkle was my only companion that dreadful night, and he is not such a bad bird after all, and is sure to be glad to see me. And let me tell you,” he added, in a serious voice, “that I intend to visit that kind lighthouse-woman again, and the Professor too, if I can find him; for I have found out one thing in the lighthouse, and that is, that though men are often cruel to us birds, they are not all so; and though they must, most of them, know very little about us, there are a few at least who understand our ways.”

Pipi soon regained his strength, his song, and his spirits; he found a wife, and when his young ones were old enough to understand, he told them many stories of his wonderful adventures. And he did not forget to go and see Peter and his wife in the autumn, when the birds were on their way once more to the south. He came into the garden, and from the stunted currant-tree on the wall he looked into the kitchen, and uttered a little low note of greeting. The woman looked up from her washing, saw Pipi, and uttered a cry of delight. “Peter!” she called, “it is the sick bird! Come quick and see!” But Pipi could not stay for Peter, and the cage, still standing on the dresser, made him even now feel a little uncomfortable. His voice, like that of all his comrades, had been almost silent for several weeks; but as a gleam of autumn sunshine shot into the garden, and lit up the hardy little double daisies that still contrived to bloom in that bleak spot, he called up all his strength, and uttered a single strain, the faint echo of his old spring song, before he flew away. It went straight to the good woman’s heart, and she never forgot it.

“Peter,” she said, as the lighthouse-man came into the kitchen, “don’t forget to tell the Professor gentleman that the little bird came back to thank him and us. And, Peter, don’t you ever go for to keep any more birds in cages, when you can have ’em sing to you out o’ doors; for the blessed creatures are worth better than that, and there’s human beings as might take a lesson from ’em.” And those kind eyes of hers were moist as she went on with her washing.

THE OWLS’ REVENGE

(A TALE OF BIRDS AND MEN.)

I

In May all woods are beautiful; but of all the woods I know, there is none on which the month of bluebells so freely lavishes her delights, as on the ancient and unkempt wood of Truerne. The blue carpet spread in every clearing, the gray-green oak-stems rising softly out of the blue, the fleecy clouds of spring, seen gently moving eastwards through the ruddy young leaves overhead, can never be forgotten by any one who has rambled here for a whole May-morning. No trim park-paling shuts in Truerne wood; its outskirts are set about, in these sweet spring days, with an untidy maze of “whitening hedges and uncrumpling fern,” with stretches of gorse and trailing bramble, with dense thickets of blackthorn where the nightingale builds his nest and sings unheeded. It is all this wild setting of the woodland, as well as the freedom of the wood itself, that makes it so dear to such of its human neighbours as love quiet and solitude, as well as to the birds and beasts that find home and happiness in its shelter.

Of the few human beings who haunted it a few years ago, old Oliver the woodman was the only one to whom it had wholly yielded up its secrets; and when one day he was found under his favourite old oak-tree, wrapped in a slumber from which there was no awakening, we felt that the good genius of the wood had vanished, leaving no successor. But on the morning of that 16th day of May on which my story begins and ends, old Oliver was still vigorous, and had risen at daybreak in order to finish his work early. He meant to set forward about midday for the neighbouring town on the hill; for it was fairday, or “club” as we call it in these parts, at Northstow, and he wished once more to buy a fairing for the rheumatic old wife sitting by the chimney-corner at home.

He is sitting, and eating his dinner, at the foot of his favourite oak, which is separated by a few yards of bluebells and undergrowth from one of the grassy rides, or “lights” (as we call them) which intersect the wood, and let sunshine and fresh air into its tangled depths. It is his favourite tree, partly because its gray-lichened stem divides on one side, as it nears the ground, into two big root-branches which leave a comfortable space between them – a mossy arm-chair of which he only knows the comfort who has toiled since daybreak without ceasing; and partly because the tree is old, as old as the abbey of Truerne which once stood under the shadow of the wood in the meadows below; and because it is hollow enough to be the home of a family of brown owls, whose ancestors had been tenants of the wood long before the monks became its owners. These owls were some of Oliver’s best friends; he seldom saw them, nor they him; but, boy and man, he had known them for more than half a century, and knew them well to be discreet and quiet creatures, who did no harm and gave no trouble to any one but vermin. There was a silent, mysterious sageness about their ways, which suited well with the old man’s humour.

As he sat there eating and resting, the silence of the wood was broken by the sudden squeak of a pig; and half turning his face in the direction of the ride, Oliver saw an uplifted sapling descend on the back of the squeaker, who raised his piteous voice again, and rushed onwards down the path with his companions. They were followed by the owner of the sapling, a tall man in a long greasy coat of a yellowish colour; his face was fat and ruddy, and out of it there looked two small cunning eyes, which followed the movements of his pigs to right and left with merciless swiftness. It was the kind of face which men seem to acquire who spend their lives in driving pigs and driving bargains, and who are ever bullying animals and browbeating their fellow-men. Close at his heels was another smaller man, a little wizened, discontented farmer, whom Mr. Pogson, with his natural imperativeness, had pressed into his service in driving his pigs to Northstow fair. An umbrella, as decrepit as the farmer himself, was the weapon he used, without much energy, when a pig chanced to stray in his direction.

Oliver kept very quiet as they passed: he did not like Pogson, and had no respect for Weekes the little farmer. At last they had disappeared down the ride, and after sitting a while longer, listening to the sibilant notes of the wood-wren overhead, and watching the squirrels and the nuthatches who were fellow-owners of the tree opposite to him, he rose with something of a sigh, – for he was unwilling to exchange the quiet wood for the noise and worry of the fair, – and stepped into the bridle-path to set out on his walk.

“Are ye ganging to the fair, Oliver, ye lonesome auld dog?” said a grave but friendly voice in a Scotch accent. It was the voice of Mr. McNab the keeper, who without his gun, and in his best velveteen, was on his way to look out for a spaniel-puppy or two to fill vacant places.

“Ay,” said Oliver simply, and they walked on side by side; Mr. McNab’s serious gray eyes glancing here and there through the wood, and Oliver’s earnest and rather wistful gaze kept steadily on the bluebells at his feet, as was his wont when walking. Neither of them was a man of many words or many friends; nor had they spoken to each other half a dozen times a year since the Scotchman came into the neighbourhood. Yet each of them felt, as they went along, that he had a reasonable man beside him.

II

It was high tide at Northstow fair: the broad, sloping street was crowded with pens of sheep and pigs, and resounded with the noises of oppressed animals, with the loud voices of their tyrants, and with the hideous braying of the organs which of late years have added new attractions to the merry-go-rounds. Old Oliver, soon wearied of the crowd and the hubbub, had bought his wife’s new shawl early, and was about to turn his steps homewards, when it occurred to him that it would be as well, if circumstances were favourable, to get a comfortable shave before leaving.

The Northstow barber had a double shop, one window of which was decorated with his own wigs and perfumery, while the other showed caps and bonnets, and was the domain of the milliner, his wife. As Oliver passed this latter window, and was about to step into the shop, his eye caught the well-known form of an owl – a young one, perched in an uneasy attitude on a lady’s hat. He stopped to look at it, and then discovered a placard, conspicuously placed just underneath the hat, and bearing the following inscription:

Wanted at once, by a London firm,ONE THOUSAND OWLS!7

The old fellow stood rooted to the pavement, spelling out this placard again and again. What could it mean? and what the owlet on the lady’s hat? As he lingered, two men came up behind him, and there jarred suddenly on his senses the bud coarse voice of Mr. Pogson, already a little thickened by frequent glasses of ale and brandy. “Wanted, one thousand howls!” spelt out Mr. Pogson, slowly. “How much a-piece, now? There be scores on ’em in Truerne, be’nt there, Oliver, eh?”

“Ay, there be brown uns in the wood, and white uns in my barn, and in Highfield church tower,” said the feeble voice of Mr. Weekes the farmer.

At this moment the barber, relieved for a moment from his duties, came out on his doorstep to enjoy the cheering sights and sounds of the fair.

“Good day, Mr. Pogson,” he said. “How’s the pigs? Coming in for a shave? Low prices in pigs to-day, so I hear tell. Ah, you’re looking at the notice? My wife brought it down from town yesterday. There’s a chance for making money now!”

“What do they want ’em for?” said Mr. Weekes.

“What do they give for ’em, you mean,” said Mr. Pogson with some contempt.

“What do they want ’em for?” answered the barber, shirking Mr. Pogson’s question. “Why you haven’t got any pretty daughters, Mr. Weekes, or you’d know that by this time. Look at that there owl on the bonnet! Why, bless you, ’tis all birds now with the ladies in London – and in the country too for the matter o’ that. Birds on their hats, and birds on their dresses; and a very pretty taste too, in my opinion. What’s prettier, now, than birds? Think of their songs, Mr. Pogson, and all their pretty ways! Why when you sees ’em a fluttering about on the ladies’ hats in town, you could a’most believe as you was out in the country seeing the little creeters a-flying round you and singing! And now it’s all owls, I take it. Such softness o’ feathers, you see, such wings, such – ”