"Adieu, sweet bird! thou erst hast been
Companion of each summer scene,
Loved inmate of our meadows green,
And rural home;
The music of thy cheerful song
We loved to hear; and all day long
Saw thee on pinion fleet and strong
About us roam."
It is usual in the far north of Scotland, where the writer was reared,
to have, as in England, the graveyard surrounding the parish church.
The custom is a very ancient and a very beautiful one; life's fitful
fever past and gone, to rest under the soft sward, and under the shadow
of the church where one gleaned spiritual guidance. There is something
in the very idea of this which tends to dispel much of the gloom of
death, and cast a halo round the tomb itself.
But at the very door of the old church of N--a tragedy had, years before
I had opened my eyes in life, been enacted, and since that day service
had never again been conducted within its walls. The new church was
built on an open site quite a mile from the old, which latter stands all
by itself--crumbling ivy-clad ruins, in the midst of the greenery of an
acre of ancient graves. There is a high wall around it, and giant ash
and plane trees in summer almost hide it from view. It is a solitary
spot, and on moonlit nights in winter, although the highway skirts it,
few there be who care to pass that way. The parish school or academy is
situated some quarter of a mile from the auld kirkyard, and in the days
of my boyhood even bird-nesting boys seldom, if ever, visited the place.
It was not considered "canny." For me, however, the spot had a
peculiar charm. It was so quiet, so retired, and haunted, not with
ghosts, but with birds, and many a long sunny forenoon did I spend
wandering about in it, or reclining on the grass with my Virgil or
Horace in hand--poets, by the way, who can only be thoroughly enjoyed
out of doors in the country.
A pair of owls built in this auld kirkyard for years. I used to think
they were always the same old pair, who, year after year, stuck to the
same old spot, sending their young ones away to the neighbouring woods
to begin life on their own account as soon as they were able to fly.
They were lazy birds; for two whole years they never built a nest of
their own, but took possession of a magpie's old one. But at last the
lady owl said to her lord--
"My lord, this nest is getting quite disreputable--we _must_ have a new
one this spring."
"Very well," said his lordship, looking terribly learned, "but you'll
have to build it, my lady, for I've got to think, and think, you know."
"To be sure, my lord," said she. "The world would never go on unless
you thought, and thought."
She chose an old window embrasure, and, half hid in ivy, there she built
the new nest with weeds and sticks and stubble, while he did nothing but
sit and talk Greek and natural philosophy at her.
There were tree sparrows built in the ivy of those crumbling walls, each
nest about as big as the bottom of an armchair, and containing as many
feathers as would stuff a small pillow-case, to say nothing of threads
of all colours, hair, and pieces of printed paper. Seven, eight, and
ten eggs would be in some of those, white as to ground, and beautifully
speckled with brown and grey.
I have heard the tree sparrow called a nasty, common, dowdy thing. It
really is not at all dowdy, and although it may be called the country
cousin of the busy, chattering little morsel of feathers and fluff that
hops nimbly but noisily about our roof-tops, and is constantly
quarrelling with its neighbours, the tree sparrow is far more pretty.
Nor is it quite plebeian. It is the _Passer montanus_ of some
naturalists, the _becfin friquet_ of the French; it belongs to the Greek
family, the _Fringillidae_, and does not the linnet belong to that
family too? Yes, and the beautiful bullfinch and the gaudy goldfinch as
well, to say nothing of the siskin and canary, so it cannot be plebeian.
The tree sparrow makes a nice wee pet, very loving and gentle, and not
at all particular as to food. It likes canary-seed, but insects and
worms as well, and it is not shy at picking a morsel of sugar, nor a
tiny bit of bread and butter.
There were more birds of the same family that haunted this auld
kirkyard. The greenfinch or green-grosbeak used to flit hither and
thither among the ivy like a tiny streak of lightning, and the pretty
wee redpole was also there.
There was one bird in particular that used to build in the trees that
grew inside the graveyard wall. I refer to my old friend and favourite
the chaffinch, called in Scotland the boldie. He is most brilliant in
plumage, being richly clad in russet red and brown, picked out with
blue, yellow, and white. The chaffinch is lovely whether sitting or
flying, whether trilling his song with head erect and throat puffed out,
or keeking down from the branch of a tree with one saucy eye, to see if
any one is going near his nest. His song in the wild state is more
celebrated for brilliancy and boldness than for sweetness or variation,
but in confinement it may be improved.
But this same nest is something to look at and admire for minutes at a
time. I used to think my chaffinch--the chaffinch that built in my
churchyard--was particularly proud of his nest.
"Pink, pink, pink," he used to say to me; "I see you looking up at my
nest. You may go up, if you like, and have a look in. _She_ is from
home just now, and there are four eggs in at present. There will be
five by-and-by. Now, did you ever see such beautiful eggs?"
"Never," I would reply; "they are most lovely."
"Well, then," he would continue, "pink, pink, pink! look at the nest
itself. What do you think of that for architecture? It is built, you
see, some twelve feet from the ground, against the stem, but held in its
place by a little branch. It is out of the reach of cats; if it were
higher up the wind would shake it, or the hawks would see it. It is not
much bigger than your two hands; and just look at the artistic way in
which the lichens are mingled with the moss on the outside, to blend
with the colour of the tree!"
"Yes, but," I would remark, "there are bits of paper there, as well as
lichens."
"Yes, yes, yes," the bird would reply; "bits of paper do almost as well
as lichens. Pink, pink, pink! There is the whole of Lord Palmerston's
speech there; Palmerston is a clever man, but he couldn't build a nest
like that."
I mentioned the redpole. It is, as far as beauty goes, one of the best
cage-birds we have; a modest, wee, affectionate, unassuming pet, but
deficient in song.
"Cheet, cheet, cheet, cheet, cheet, cheet, chee-ee!" What sweet little
voice is that repeating the same soft song over and over again, and
dwelling on the last syllable with long-drawn cadence? The music--for
music it is, although a song without variations--is coming from yonder
bonnie bush of golden-blossomed broom, that grows in the angle between
the two walls in a remote corner of the auld kirkyard. I throw Horace
down, and get up from the grass and walk towards it.
"Chick, chick, chick, chick, chee-ee!"
"Oh, yes! I daresay you haven't a nest anywhere near; but I know
better." This is my reply.
I walk across the unhallowed ground, as this patch is called, for--
whisper it!--suicides lie here, and the graves have not been raised, nor
do stones mark the spot where they lie.
Here is the nest, in under a bit of weedy bank, and yonder is the bird
himself--the yellow-hammer, skite, or yellow bunting--looking as gay as
a hornet, for well he knows that I will not disturb his treasures. The
eggs are shapely, white in ground, and beautifully streaked and
speckled, and splashed with reddish brown. But there are no eggs; only
four morsels of yellow fluff, apparently, surrounded by four gaping
orange-red mouths. But they are cosy. I catch a tiny slug, and break
it up between them, and the cock-bird goes on singing among the broom,
while the hen perches a little way off, twittering nervously and
peevishly.
"Chick, chick, che-ee!" says the bird. "I don't pretend to build such a
pretty nest as the chaffinch; besides, such a flimsy thing as his would
not do on the ground; mine has a solid foundation of hay, don't you see?
That keeps out the damp, and that lining of hair is warmer than
anything else in the world."
A poor, persecuted little bird is this same yellow bunting; and
schoolboys often, when they find the nest, scatter it and its precious
contents to the four winds of heaven.
All the more reason why we should be kind to the pet if we happen to
have it in confinement. It is true the wild song is not very
interesting; but when a young one is got, it will improve itself if it
can listen to the song of another bird, for nearly all our feathered
songsters possess the gift of imitation.