Spring advanced. The caravan wandered along green ways. Primroses were
peeping out at the edge of the coppice; the oaks showed a tinge of
gold; the wild cherry trees were snow-white with blossom. Beech trees
and sycamores were bursting into leaf; only the ash trees remained
bare as in midwinter. The ash is the last to don her green gown, and
the first to lose her yellow leaves; a short-lived summer lady. On
the topmost bare branch of an ash sat a throstle, singing loud and
clear—so clear that he seemed to sing words. “Fly here! fly here!
fly here! Will-he-do-it? Will he do it?” shouted the throstle: “Come
bob-a-link, come bob-a-link! Sky high! Sky high! so—so—so.” “Oh
greenwood tree sweet pretty lea!” warbled a blackbird softly. “Spring
is here! is here!” shouted the throstle, on his tree top.
Xarifa and Tuppenny sat listening on a sunny bank below: “Birds; sweet
singers all! The coppice is full of birds. Hark to the blackbird in the
hawthorn; see his yellow bill. Now he pauses, waiting for an answering
blackbird, far away in the wood. It reminds me of Birds’ Place in
spring.” “Where is Birds’ Place, Xarifa?” “Listen while he sings his
song again.” The blackbird sang. A soft cloud dimmed the sunshine; a
few large raindrops fell. The birds interrupted their singing and flew
down onto the grass; all except little Dykey Sparrow, singing to his
wife, while she sat on her blue speckled eggs.
“Where is Birds’ Place, Xarifa?” “Birds’ Place that I remember was
in Hertfordshire, long ago when I was young. Perhaps the elms and
chestnuts have been felled; the passing swallows say the cedar is blown
down. Birds’ Place had been the garden of an old, old manor house. No
brick, no stone was standing; but still the straggling damask roses
bloomed, and garden flowers grew amongst the tall untidy grass. Currant
and gooseberry bushes had run wild in the thicket; they bore the
sweetest little berries that the blackbirds loved. No one pruned the
bushes, or netted them against the birds; no one except birds gathered
the strawberries that were scarcely larger than wild white strawberries
of the woods. It was a paradise of birds.”
The outer side of the grove was bounded by a high close-latticed wooden
fence, gray green and lichen grown; with rusty nails along the top,
that kept out village boys and cats. Birds and butterflies and flowers
lived undisturbed in that pleasant green wilderness that had once been
a garden. And in the middle of the mossy grass plot stood the glory of
the garden—the great cedar. Its head towered high above the self-sown
saplings of the grove; its wide spreading lower branches lay along
the mossy grass, where orange-tip butterflies flitted, and red-tailed
velvety bees gathered honey from the cowslip flowers.
Spring following spring a pair of missel thrushes built their nest
upon a branch low down, and the ring doves nested and cooed higher up.
Starlings and nuthatches reared their broods in holes about the trunk;
the great cedar was large enough for all. The grove was carpeted with
flowers, ground ivy, forget-me-nots, blue periwinkle. Amongst the
bushes grew peonies and sweet-smelling day-lilies of the old garden,
along with wild flowers; cow parsley, and white stitchwort that we
called ‘milk maids,’ and pink ragged-robin, and cuckoo pint that is
called ‘lords and ladies’; and everywhere primroses amongst the moss.
There, in a nest thatched with brown chestnut leaves, I was born; I
and my little dormouse sister and brother. “What were their names,
Xarifa?” But Xarifa continued—“Never, never anywhere have I seen so
many flowers or listened to so many birds. Even at night when it was
dark, and our mother had closed up the opening of our nest with plaited
leaves and grass—even in the deep black velvety darkness came the low
slow note of a bird. I do not think that the nightingale’s is actually
sweeter than a blackbird’s song; but it is weird and wonderful to
hear it in the black silence of the night. There are no nightingales
up here in the north, Tuppenny; but there are bonny songsters
never-the-less. Father Blackbird in the hawthorn bush made me think
about Birds’ Place.”
[Illustration]
“Tell me about the nest and your little dormouse brother and sister?”
But Xarifa did not answer; she had fallen fast asleep, dreaming
peacefully of springtime in Birds’ Place.
“Tuppenny! Tuppenny!” called Jenny Ferret, “come and help me to spread
the tea things underneath the caravan; spring showers can be uncommonly
wetting.” “Tuppenny,” said Pony William, munching mouthfuls of grass
between his words, “Tuppenny do not—ask Xarifa questions about her
dormouse sister and brother—she suffered from a distressing want of
appetite—when she first travelled with us. It is unwise—to remind her
of Adolphus.” “I am sorry, no, yes, certainly,” twittered Tuppenny, “I
am not to, who was Adolphus, not to talk about; how many teaspoons will
I fetch for you, Mrs. Jenny Ferret?” “Only three teaspoons this time,
Tuppenny; for you and me and Xarifa. Pony Billy does not use a spoon;
and Paddy Pig drinks his tea without stirring; and Iky Shepster is not
here, thank goodness.” “Where has he flown to, Jenny Ferret?” “Up and
down, and round about; scattering handbill leaves to tell the Little
Folk all about our circus show tomorrow in the morning early.”
The leaves were green leaves, veined and pencilled, like as if marked
by leaf tunnelling insects; but the birds and beasts of the woods and
fields know how to read them. Mice, squirrels, rabbits, and birds, as
well as the larger farm animals picked up the leaves; and they knew
where to look for the Circus.
[Illustration]
[Illustration]