With a delicious sense of secrecy, I stole past the Cathedral. Pressed
against my breast was the cage that held Coppertoes. He sat quietly on his
perch, very long, and slender, and bright-eyed with amazement at this
sudden excursion into a new world. I wondered what he thought of the
towering Cathedral, shrouded in a film of hoar frost that lent its ancient
stones a bloom as delicate as the petals of flowers.
Three pigeons hopped daintily down the shallow stone steps, cocking their
heads inquisitively at the bird in the cage. I shouted at them, and they
rose slowly to the tower above.
Silent indeed was the hall when I entered. Only the clock ticked
ponderously. The house was cold, and Coppertoes seemed suddenly very
fragile. How lonely he would be! I stared at the closed door of the
parlour, thinking what a shame that the stuffed birds in there were not
alive, so they might be company for him. Still--he was very young--and had
not seen much of the world. Might he not be made to believe that they were
a foreign breed that never chirped or left their perches? Anything was
better than the dark and loneliness. And if he chose to sing I was sure he
could not be heard through that heavy door.
Like a ghost I went in and shut the door behind me.
I held his wicker cage against the glass case. "Coppertoes," I whispered,
"Other birds! Aren't they pretty? Want to get in an' play with them, old
chap? See the pretty oriole? An' the owl, Coppertoes. Lovebirds, too. Want
to get in, little fellow? Such a bully big cage you never saw."
I opened the door of the glass case, and cautiously introduced the bird
cage. I opened the door of the cage. Coppertoes paid no heed but busied
himself in pecking sharply at his lump of sugar. I urged him with my finger
but still he refused to see the door. Then I took away his sugar, and poked
him. With a light and careless hop he was on the threshold. He cocked his
head. He spied the oriole.
An instant later he was at its throat. Feathers flew. He was back again on
the roof of his cage spitting feathers out of his mouth. More feathers
sailed slowly through the heavy air. Then he spied the lovebirds. With
passionate fury he attacked them both at once, tearing their plumage
impartially; his eye already selecting the next victim.
Though my heart thumped with apprehension, my mouth was stretched in a
broad grin. I felt that I should never tire of the spectacle before me. I
realized that I had always hated the stuffed birds.
Coppertoes was busy with the owl, when a piercing scream came from behind
me. I turned and found Mrs. Handsomebody gazing with horrified fascination
at the orgy under glass. She took three steps forward, her eyes starting
with horror.
"Come to life--" she gasped, in a strangled voice--"after all these
years--and gone stark mad."
She fell, at full length, across the green and red medallions of the
carpet.
Then, with a rush, Mary Ellen and the charwoman, Mrs. Coe, were upon us,
and, after them, my brothers.
"Lord preserve us!" cried Mary Ellen, bending above her prostrate mistress,
"what has come over the poor lady to be took like this?"
"Is she dead, do you fink?" asked The Seraph, on a hopeful note.
"Well, if she is, faith! 'tis yersilves has kilt her."
"She's just in a swoond," asserted Mrs. Coe, calmly. "Wot she needs is
brandy. Yus, and terbaccer smoke blowed dahn 'er froat." Mrs. Handsomebody
moaned.
"Better get her out of here," suggested Angel, his eye on Coppertoes who,
sated by bloodshed, lay with wings outstretched, panting on the floor of
the case.
"Thrue," agreed Mary Ellen. "And shut the dure afther ye, and make
yersilves scarce till tea-time, like good childer, do."
Mrs. Handsomebody was borne away by Mary Ellen and Mrs. Coe, the latter
still muttering--"terbaccer smoke dahn 'er froat."
We restored Coppertoes to his wicker cage, and wrapping it in an
antimacassar, hid it beneath the piano.