Soon the news of the betrothal spread amongst the neighbours. The
nearest trees were all agog; nothing was to be heard but twitterings and
whisperings, not to mention backbitings, for envy is to be found
everywhere in this world. The tomtits above all took a delight in saying
evil of the bride, calling her a silly, insipid little thing; they
chirped and chattered, whistled and whispered, pecking and pulling to
pieces the poor innocent child’s good name. In vain the bullfinches,
good, decent bodies, tried to interfere: the tomtits’ cackle quite
drowned their grave remonstrances. The critics had enlisted a naughty
grisette, a chaffinch, a minx who had kicked over the traces in her day,
and was renowned for her spiteful tongue; a blackbird too had joined the
conspiracy, and now, perched all together on a high branch, from which
they could spy upon the comings and goings of the goldfinch household,
they kept up a famous uproar.
The Master of Ceremonies of the birds’ parish arrived in the afternoon;
he had come to inquire the hour at which the young folks were to be
married, and if they wanted choristers to attend. It was agreed to
engage a lark and a chaffinch; nightingales were too expensive. A pretty
carpet of green would be laid down, as green as on the finest summer’s
day; the porch was to be decorated with anemones, and the chancel with
daisies; the sun would be ordered for five o’clock, to make a grand show
of purple and gold. Of course the drones would be at the organ, and they
would ask the wind to give them a helping hand by roaring in the pipes.
The harebells would strike up a merry peal at peep of day, and ring till
the bridal pair arrived. The holy-water stoup would be filled with dew.
As for incense, the violets would see the censers were well filled, and
the bees would keep them swinging all through the ceremony.
I forgot to tell you that a wedding breakfast had been ordered, at
which, besides flies and worms galore, they were to regale themselves on
a cricket and a locust—a magnificent spread indeed. The nearest spring
would supply the wine; they were to have corn-berries for dessert, and
the table would be laid in the thickest of an apple-tree in full
blossom, where a cloud of gnats was always buzzing and making beautiful
music. A yellowhammer was invited; he was a rollicking blade, and there
was nobody to match him at singing a comic song.
All was going as well as could be; yet how long seemed the hours of
waiting to the little bridegroom! To and fro he flitted, up and down the
roads he sauntered, trying to cheat his impatience by incessant
movement; presently he would light on a bough and fall a-dreaming, while
his little heart beat fast and furiously.
Every minute he kept glancing up at the great dial God has set in the
sky, and which only the birds can read; but the sunbeam which is the
hand of this aerial clock would _not_ move fast enough for his
impatience. He could only bewail his lot, and force himself to drop
asleep to kill the lagging time. He even went to see the village
clockmaker, an old cuckoo, a greybeard bird with a nid-nodding head, who
all day long used to strike the hours with exasperating punctuality, and
besought him to quicken up the evening a bit.
But the cuckoo shook his head.
“Little madcap,” he told him, “am I to put out all the folk of the
countryside for you? Don’t you know everything goes on by rule and
regulation among your neighbours, and that each hour brings its own
tasks? Why, whatever would they think if I rang vespers before the great
timepiece of the heavens had indicated the time of twilight? What would
the mole say if I brought him out of his underground house, looking
black as a collier, before nightfall, and if suddenly the sun dazzled
him with its light—poor purblind fellow who had never in his life dared
look at anything but the moon?”
So, the cuckoo having shown him the door, he wandered off again,
flitting from hedgerow to hedgerow, burning with impatience.