TALES OF THE BIRDS
[Illustration: colophon]
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
LONDON · BOMBAY · CALCUTTA
MELBOURNE
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
NEW YORK · BOSTON · CHICAGO
ATLANTA · SAN FRANCISCO
THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD.
TORONTO
[Illustration: ... And stood there, proud and fierce, one foot still
grasping its victim.--P. 92.
_Front._]
TALES OF THE BIRDS
BY
W. WARDE FOWLER
AUTHOR OF “A YEAR WITH THE BIRDS.”
“Μετἀ δἐ χρόνον την πελειάδα ἀνθρωηίη
φωνή αὐδάξασθαι λέγουσι.”
HERODOTUS
_WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY BRYAN HOOK_
MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED
ST. MARTIN’S STREET, LONDON
1909
RICHARD CLAY AND SONS, LIMITED.
BREAD STREET HILL, E.C., AND
BUNGAY, SUFFOLK.
_First Edition._, 1888.
_Second Edition_, 1889. _Reprinted_, 1891, 1899, 1909.
_School Edition_, 1901. _Reprinted_, 1903 (_twice_).
TO
G. J. E.
IN MEMORY OF PLEASANT DAYS
IN THE SUNNY SUMMER
OF 1887.
CONTENTS.
PAGE
A WINTER’S TALE 1
OUT OF TUNE 33
A JUBILEE SPARROW 54
THE FALCON’S NEST 82
A DEBATE IN AN ORCHARD 109
A TRAGEDY IN ROOK-LIFE 132
A QUESTION BEGINNING WITH “WHY” 156
THE LIGHTHOUSE 181
THE OWLS’ REVENGE 210
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
... AND STOOD THERE, PROUD AND FIERCE, WITH ONE
FOOT STILL GRASPING ITS VICTIM (_Frontispiece._)
THUS THEY PASSED THE NIGHT, TOLERABLY WARM AND
COMFORTABLE, AND EVEN SLEEPING _To face page_ 19
“HOW THAT BIRD DOES SING!” “ “ 49
A “JUBILEE” SPARROW “ “ 61
AND THE BLACKBIRD BEGAN HIS ORATION “ “ 117
... DEEP IN MEDITATION ON THE PROBLEMS WHICH
OCCUPIED HIS MIND _To face page_ 141
“WOULD YOU MIND TELLING ME, AS I SEE YOU WAG
YOUR OWN TAILS SO CONSTANTLY AND SO NICELY,
WHY YOU DO IT?” _To face page_ 170
PIPI LOOKED UP AND SAW FLIP; IN AN INSTANT THEY
WERE TOGETHER _To face page_ 205
HE IS SITTING AND EATING HIS DINNER AT THE FOOT
OF HIS FAVOURITE OAK _To face page_ 212
TAIL-PIECE TO “THE OWLS’ REVENGE” _Page_ 239
TALES OF THE BIRDS.
A WINTER’S TALE.
There is a certain quiet bit of land, just where two midland counties
meet, that is in winter a favourite resort of the fieldfares. There they
find all they need--the hedges are usually bright with hips, and with
the darker crimson berries of the hawthorn; the fields are all
pasture-meadows, and the grass is tufty and full of insects; a little
stream winds snake-like through the fields, hidden by an overarching
growth of briar and bramble. No well-worn path crosses these meadows,
and you may count on being undisturbed if you sit for a few minutes, to
enjoy the winter sunshine and watch the shy birds, on the bole of one of
the scattered elms that shelter the cows in summer. The fieldfares are
in clover here: they get food, drink, sunshine when there is any, and
above all the solitude they so deeply love. In other parts of the
district you may see them, or you may not, for they move about and show
their handsome forms and slaty backs, now here, now there; but in this
favoured haunt some are always to be seen, and set up their loud
call-note from elm or hedgetop as soon as your intruding form is seen
moving in their direction.
One autumn there had been but a poor crop of berries; and by the time
the fieldfares arrived in middle England the blackbirds and
missel-thrushes had already rifled the hedges of much of their fruit.
But up to the middle of January enough remained to feed the usual number
of visitors, and when once January is past, they may hope for open
weather and a plentiful supply of grubs and worms to help them out.
During the third week in that wintry month, the sun shone bright and
warm, though the fields were covered with hoar frost at night; no
thought of trouble entered the hearts of the birds; in the middle of the
day you might even have heard them uttering a faint kind of song from
the hedge-top over the brook, as the genial sun warmed them and bade
them think of the spring that was surely coming.
But the frost went on, day by day; and now the blue sky was covered with
dull cloud, driven before a bitter north-east wind, so that the sun
could no longer melt the hard-bound meadows with his midday glow. The
fieldfares found themselves quite alone. The redwings had gone to the
neighbourhood of the towns and villages, and so too had the robins and
wrens, who had lived in the hedges all the winter through till now. The
rooks and starlings were in the ploughed fields, and searching even
there almost in vain for food. A chance crow or magpie was all the
company they had for several days together; and crows and magpies are
not always agreeable neighbours.
At last the berries were all gone, and the ground so hard-frozen that no
bill could break it and no bird hope to find grub or worm there. Some of
the elder birds went a long distance one day to forage; they returned
very tired with news of a single hedge on which there was still some
store of berries, but they had left one of their number behind them.
The old birds looked very grave; they called a meeting, and then the
eldest, with drooping tail and lack-lustre eye, told them that they must
stay no longer where they were, and no longer keep all together. They
must break up into small parties and find their food as best they could
for themselves; if they did not go far, and the frost broke up, they
might all find their way back again in a few days; all might yet be
well. “But I must tell you,” said he, turning to the younger birds,
“that if the frost goes on, or if snow falls, we shall all be in peril
of our lives. And see, a light, dry snow is falling already! You that
are young and strong must leave us at once and go southward. Do not
delay a moment; fly while you can. We, who are already tired out, will
seek the berry hedge we found, and try and recruit ourselves before we
move further. We left our poor old friend under that hedge this morning,
with his head under his wing, and we do not know whether we shall find
him again alive. But we will all hope for the best, and try to struggle
through a bad time. Good-bye, young ones, good-bye! Be sure you break up
into companies of three or four, or you will never find enough to keep
you from starving. Keep a good heart, and go straight southwards towards
the mid-day sun, and when the frost goes, come again northwards, and
hope to find us here.” Then he flew away, slowly and feebly, and most of
the other old birds followed him.
The young ones, who still had plenty of life and hope in them, and
hardly knew what it was to be in peril of their lives, soon broke up
into different divisions, and started different ways, but all in a
southward direction. Each company had its leader, and there was much
rivalry as to which should belong to the company which was led by a
handsome and lively bird named Cocktail, to whom they all looked up. But
Cocktail would not have more than three with him; and Cocktail was wont
to have his own way. He chose his great friend Feltie[1] and two others,
Jack and Jill; and off they went with a loud and hearty good-bye; the
other three quite confident in Cocktail’s prudence, skill, and courage.
He was nearly two years old; he had had a nest and family last summer
in a Norwegian pine-forest; he had attacked a magpie that was
threatening his young, and beaten it away in disgrace; he had led a
large party across the Northern Sea last autumn to England, and had
found them all a breakfast within an hour of landing. Whatever he did
was sure to be right, and wherever he went there was sure to be food. He
was well aware of all his virtues, and liked, in a cheerful and pleasant
way, to be made much of; and he had taken young Feltie under his
protection from their first acquaintance, because Feltie had very soon
made it plain that in his honest eyes there was no such bird as Cocktail
to be found in the whole world. Jill was chosen because she was a young
hen-bird of a mild and yielding disposition, yet of pleasant manners and
ladylike ways; and to say the truth, during these sunny days of late,
Cocktail had cast an approving eye upon her, and had half made up his
mind to select her as his partner for the coming spring and
summer--provided of course that no one with superior charms should meet
his eye in the meantime. As for her own choice in the matter, that never
entered into his calculations. Lastly, Jack was the brother of Jill,
and very fond of her--which is not usually the case with brothers and
sisters among the fieldfares; and on this account he was allowed to join
the party. “We must have one more,” Cocktail had said before they
started, “and it really doesn’t much matter who it is provided he will
follow me and do what I tell him. No swaggerers here, please; I want
some one who’s nobody in particular!”
“Oh, if you wouldn’t mind, Cocktail,” said Jill humbly, “I don’t think
Jack is any one in particular, mayn’t he come?”
“Let him come forward,” said Cocktail magnificently; “let me see him.
Here, you Jack, are you any one in particular?” Jack declared that he
was no one but himself, and therefore could not be any one _in
particular_, like Cocktail; and on the strength of this he was admitted
to the little company.
Cocktail now found the fondest desire of his heart realized; so far his
genius had always been hampered by older birds, who in spite of their
inferior talents would always contrive to direct the movements of a
troop by combining together: but now he was in sole and happy command
of three admiring subjects, who would not worry him with advice, and
would obey his orders implicitly. He took them first to the top of a
tall elm, whence they could see over the fast whitening fields to a
range of hills not far away to the southward; he told them that he
should cross those hills and rest for the night on the other side in
shelter which he would find for them. Meanwhile they were to fly at a
little distance apart, in order to keep a good look-out for berries; but
they must always keep their eyes on him, and when they heard his signal
“Chak-chak,” they were to join him again at once.
“The first who fails to come at that signal,” said Cocktail, “or who is
guilty of any negligence or disobedience, WILL BE AT ONCE LEFT BEHIND!”
With these words he started off, and the others followed him as they had
been told, at a little distance to right and left. Very little in the
way of food was found that day, and Jack and Jill were getting tired and
hungry, when after rising to the hills, and passing for some miles over
high, desolate country, where there was hardly a hedge to be seen, and
the white carpet was only broken by low gray stone walls which could not
help a hungry fieldfare, they descended towards evening into the shelter
of a little well-wooded valley,[2] where were the pleasant grounds of a
gentleman’s house. Cocktail made straight for this house, but stopped
short on a tall tree outside the garden, and began to look round him.
It was about four o’clock, and fast getting dark. He could see the lamp
lighted in a room in the house, and a bright fire burning; a lady sat by
the fire at work; then a maid came in with tea, and the blinds were
drawn down, the shutters closed, and all was gray and cold again. But
Cocktail’s keen eye had seen something by the bright firelight which
made him jerk his tail and sit more upright on his bough--berries,
scarlet berries, arranged all about an old oak chimney-piece!
“Shame!” said he indignantly; “but there must be more of them in the
garden.” And bidding the others follow, he flew down into the
well-planted grounds. They here found themselves nearer to human
habitations than they had ever been in their lives before; but hunger
made them bold. “To right and left,” said Cocktail, “and look for
holly-bushes.” His own search was a failure; he found several bushes,
but not a berry was left. He felt very angry when he thought of the rich
store of berries inside that cosy room, where no starving birds could
get at them. There was the well-fed lady enjoying her tea by the fire,
and looking with admiration at the berries (_looking_ indeed, thought
Cocktail, and not eating them!), and here were four poor birds starving
outside in the cold for want of them.
But now a “chak” was heard from another part of the garden. Making his
way there, he found that Jack was the lucky discoverer of a bush that
still boasted a fair store of berries; up came the others too, and now
they had a good feast on the berries as long as the light lasted: then,
at Cocktail’s order, they dropped down to roost in a thick shrubbery
some distance from the house, where the evergreens had as yet kept the
snow from lying very deep upon the ground. In a few minutes their four
heads were under their tired wings, and they were fast asleep.
Next day they were awake early, but their breakfast on the remaining
berries was rudely interrupted by the gardener, who came to sweep the
snow from the walks; and after lingering in a tree for a few minutes,
Cocktail gave an angry “chak,” and led the way again southwards. To have
his breakfast broken into in this way was more than he was used to, and
for several days he had had no morning bath. And more than that, he was
tired and stiff with the night’s hard frost; so his temper was not so
good as usual, and he flew high and quick, hardly looking at the hedges
as he passed over them. Many a time the others would fain have stopped
to pick a stray berry, or try for grains on a stubble-field where they
could see partridges cowering below them; but on went Cocktail without
heeding, and on they had to go too.
About midday they came to the foot of another long range of hills, which
they had seen in the distance for some time. The north-east wind was
blowing hard, and had driven them some way to the westwards; and they
had turned still farther west to avoid a large town,[3] where engines
were puffing, and trains rushing continually in and out. Under these
hills they found a large park, with thorn-bushes planted here and there,
on which a few berries were still showing red through the white rime
that clung to them; and here Cocktail at last halted, and allowed his
famished followers a little rest. But he was more severe and imperious
than on the day before, and strictly forbade them to go out of his
sight.
“We shall go on again before long,” he said; “we must get further south
yet, so be ready to start at any moment.”
“Don’t you think,” said Jack, “that we might stay here a day or two at
least? The park is large, and there are a few berries on a good many of
the trees.”
“Did I ask your advice?” said Cocktail angrily.
“No, you didn’t, but--”
“Then hold your tongue, Mr. Nobody-in-particular. I did not bring you
here to tell me what I ought to do. Leave this bush directly. Do as I
tell you at once--it’s all you’re fit for.” So Jack retired in disgrace,
and in great wrath, and Jill went with him. Poor little Jill! She was
getting very faint, and had hardly had strength left to get as far as
she had come; but being a brave little soul she kept it to herself and
struggled on. But when she was alone with Jack she told him how bad she
felt.
“Jack,” she said, “I can fly no further to-day. Why does he want to go
on?”
“Because he knows more about it than we do, I suppose,” said Jack. “And
we have promised to follow, you know. You must have a good dinner and
come on somehow.”
“But I can’t eat,” said Jill: “I’m so tired, I can hardly move, and the
berries are so hard and dry, I can’t get them down my throat.”
“That’s serious,” returned Jack; “you must certainly have rest. I’ll go
and tell Cocktail, and he’ll be sure to stay a day or two.”
So Jack flew back to Cocktail’s bush, but was instantly ordered off
again. Feltie however flew after him to ask what he wanted, and on
hearing the state of things, undertook to be his ambassador to
Cocktail. But that imperious captain would not listen.
“Rubbish,” he said. “Do you suppose I didn’t know that we should have
this kind of thing going on? What’s the good of a leader if he is not to
whip up lazy birds?” And he instantly gave the signal for starting, and
flew off towards the hills. Feltie followed him by instinct, and turning
to look back, saw Jack and Jill starting too, the latter flying slowly
and feebly. Feltie’s heart sank within him; he couldn’t help thinking
that it was cruel of Cocktail, and that there was no real reason why
they should not stay. He looked at the line of hills; they were one long
range of pure white, not even broken by the dark line of a wall or a
hedge. As the ground rose below them the cold wind blew still colder.
How much more comfortable it had been in the park! He would make a last
effort to save Jill’s strength, and perhaps her life. If they could only
halt on that large clump of trees at the top of the great curving hill
they were now flying up, all might be well; Cocktail might be persuaded
to turn back again.
He put on his utmost speed, and overtook his leader.
“Cocktail,” he said, “dear captain, will you perch for a moment on these
trees to let the others come up?”
Cocktail was really fond of Feltie, whereas he only patronized Jill and
tolerated Jack. He also felt that he had been harsh, and was willing to
be gracious once more. He agreed to halt, and when they reached the
trees he turned round to the wind and gave his loudest “Chak-chak.” But
there were no birds in sight.
They waited a moment, Feltie’s heart fluttering; Cocktail sitting
strongly on his bough, with head erect. Then he called again, and then
again. After that there was a long silence. Feltie dared not break it;
Cocktail was too proud to do so. Not a living creature was in sight; not
a labourer returning to his fireside; not a rook, not a rabbit. There
were tracks of four-footed creatures on the snow below the clump of
trees, but all was deadly still, except the branches as they swayed in
the bitter wind.
Suddenly the shriek of an engine coming from the distant town broke in
on the silence, and gave Feltie a kind of courage.
“Let us go back,” he said, “and find them. Jill can’t go on, I feel
sure, and Jack has stayed with her. Let us go back and pass the night in
the park.”
“Feltie,” said Cocktail, “I never guessed you were such a coward. _You_
want to stay behind too, do you? Go back and join Jack and Jill; the
berries won’t last so long as the frost, and you will be less able then
to fly further south. There you’ll stay, and there perhaps you’ll die;
and I shall never see you again. Why can’t you trust in me? I expected
to be obeyed, and you are all rebelling and deserting me!”
Feltie made up his mind in a moment. Jack and Jill must take care of
themselves; he and Cocktail must hold together. A shade of pity crossed
his mind for Cocktail’s disappointment. “He was meant to lead,” he
thought, “and we are not giving him a fair chance. Whatever happens I
will stick to him, and perhaps he will need my help yet.”
“I am ready,” he said; “I will not leave you.”
“That’s a good fellow,” said Cocktail. “Now fly your best; the sun must
be sinking soon, for though it is all cloudy, I can see a faint pink
light on the hills we left behind us this morning. Remember how easily
we got across them, and what a good supper we found on the other side.
We shall soon be across these hills too, and then we will find another
garden and more holly-trees.” And off he flew.
Cocktail was quite himself again, but he had reckoned without his host:
how was he, poor bird, to know what the Marlborough Downs were like in
winter? How was he to guess that instead of reaching some deep warm
valley at sunset, they might fly on till after dark, and indeed perhaps
all through the night, without a chance of escaping from that terrible
wind? Long, undulating plains, all shrouded in white; rounded hills,
whose dim whiteness melted into leaden gray as it met the snow-laden
clouds; here and there a shelterless dip, down which the wind swept
almost more wildly than on the open plain: between these they had to
choose, if choose they would: and as one was no better than the other,
they went straight on.
At last they reached a rather deeper and wider hollow, at the bottom of
which a large road ran.[4] A high bank sheltered this road to the north,
and at the top of the bank was a hedge. It was now dark, blowing and
snowing furiously.
“This is our only chance, Feltie,” said Cocktail: “but see there where
the road turns a little; there we can get a better shelter.”
And here, just where an old ruined turnpike cottage stood between the
road and the bank, with long brown grass growing behind it, they settled
down for the night--a night which few who live on those downs will ever
forget. Feltie himself used afterwards to say that they must have died,
but for one solitary piece of good fortune. The two birds had crouched
down in the long grass at the foot of the bank close to each other, and
put their heads under their wings, but sleep would not come; they were
too hungry and too wretched. Some time after dark a rustling was heard
in the frozen grass; some four-footed creature was coming.
[Illustration: Thus they passed the night, tolerably warm and
comfortable, and even sleeping.--P. 19.]
“Fox!” whispered Cocktail; “but I can’t fly, and if I could, where
should we go? It’s all up, I fear, but crouch closer in the grass and
see.”
It was not a fox; it was a hare. Puss came softly in behind the ruined
cottage, and crouched down quietly close to the birds. They kept
perfectly still. When she was fast asleep Cocktail whispered to Feltie
to move up to her, and did so himself, getting as near her warm breath
as possible. Feltie followed his example. And thus they passed the
night, tolerably warm and comfortable, and even sleeping. Puss never
offered to stir, and was still fast asleep when they left her in the
morning.
The next day, no breakfast. Not a morsel of food was to be found
anywhere. The fields were deep in snow. Once they tried a rickyard, but
the farmer’s son came out with his gun, and they had to take to flight
again, frightened out of their lives. Their wings were getting feeble,
and they often had to alight on the ground and rest; and after resting,
every fresh starting was more difficult than the last. Cocktail said
little, and seemed to be getting deaf and sleepy; Feltie had to take
the lead and keep the lookout. They passed at midday over some
lower-lying country,[5] and then, almost without knowing it, they once
more found themselves upon a high, bleak table-land of never-ending
down.[6] As night fell they sank quite exhausted on the sheltered side
of a high hill, whose flanks were clothed thickly with gorse, hoping
that some friendly hare might again favour them with her company.
In the middle of the night Cocktail suddenly spoke: “Feltie,” he said,
“we ought to have stayed in that park. If I had known what was coming I
would have stayed, but one can’t know everything. You may have to go on
without me to-morrow; if I can’t fly, you must go on. I’m your leader,
and this is my last order. Go on till you get food, and when the frost
goes, come back this way if you care to. If you don’t find me, tell Jack
and Jill that they were right, and I was wrong. Good-night once more,
old Feltie; mind and do as I tell you.”
Cocktail said these last words with something of his old cheerful tone
of authority; then he put his head under his wing again. Feltie said
nothing, but nestled closer to him. When morning broke, and Feltie
ruffled his feathers and looked about him as usual, Cocktail did not do
the same. His head was still under his wing, but not a feather stirred;
Cocktail was dead, and frozen hard. Feltie shuddered and flew away,
hardly knowing where he went.
It did not indeed much matter which way he went. Death was all around.
The only living creature abroad was a wandering carrion crow, whose
melancholy croak seemed to tell that he too was starving. The broad
white pall lay silently over the whole plain; the sky was still
overcast, and the wind blew from the north-east with hardly less cruel
violence than on the day before. It was more the wind than his own wings
that carried Feltie along. Those wings were stiff and painful, and would
do their work no longer. And he, too, like poor Cocktail, was getting
drowsy with hunger and fatigue; life was going slowly out of him. He did
not feel much pain; he simply kept getting every minute more tired, more
sleepy, and, strange to say, more comfortable.
After a time he came to the edge of a steep hill, at the foot of which
was a straggling village. It looked desolate enough, for the thatched
roofs were covered with snow, and tall elms above them swayed in the
howling wind. Beyond the village were some flat meadows, full of
ditches, and divided by a stream not yet quite frozen over; on the other
side of the meadows the downs rose steeply again. Feltie had not enough
life left in him to feel that there was any hope for him in this valley;
he was simply drifting like a dead leaf or a snowflake, and it little
mattered where he stopped. Somewhere the leaf would settle and decay,
somewhere the snowflake would drop and melt: somewhere too the poor
starving bird must rest from his last flight, and sink into a
never-ending sleep. The wind took him over the brow of the hill, and
with a series of little flights, ever growing shorter and feebler, he
made his way down the white slope, and settled, almost stupefied, under
the leeward side of a large barn, which stood close to a farmhouse on
the outskirts of the village. There he sat crouching, his head sunk into
his neck, his tail and wings drooping, his eyes half closed--a very
different bird from the Feltie who had started on his journey three days
before, quite unconscious of trouble and pain.
What was this? Human voices, laughter, coming round the corner of the
barn! Feltie had never been so near a human being before. He tried to
fly, but it was impossible; no strength was left. His heart beat, and he
crouched closer to the ground. Then two small ploughboys, shouting and
snowballing each other, burst round the barn; the foremost, seeing
Feltie, at once ran up and seized him, thus offering a splendid aim to
his pursuer, who sent a snowball at him which took deadly effect on him.
But the first boy popped Feltie into his pocket, and ran off, crying out
as he ran:
“I’se got a bird: thee sha’n’t have none of un!”
Down the village street he ran, making for his father’s cottage, but had
got no farther than the vicarage gate, which was half way down the
street, when another well-compacted snowball, delivered from behind the
gate, knocked his hat off into the road, and filled one ear with snow
which at once began to trickle gently down his neck. He looked up with a
red face, and saw the vicar’s son, a boy of fourteen, swinging on the
gate and laughing with all his might.
“Oh, that was a beauty!” he said: “Oh, that was a tickler for you,
Bill!”
“Thou beest a beast,” was Bill’s reply. He didn’t mean a pun, but
perhaps there was a pleasant emphasis in the doubled syllable. “Thou
beest a beast, thou beest.”
“What’s that?” said the swinger on the gate suddenly jumping down. “What
am I? I’ll teach you--” But Bill did not stop to hear what he was to be
taught. He took to his heels again and ran like a deer. But the vicar’s
son was more than a match for awkward Bill at running, and in less than
a hundred yards he collared him and had him down in a twinkling on the
snow in the deserted street.
“I’ll teach you to call me names, you young cad.” And he began his
lesson by scientifically “bagging” Bill’s wind.
“Doan’t thee pummel I, doan’t thee now,” said panting Bill. “I’ll gi’
thee a bird I’se got in my pocket, if thee woan’t pummel I no more.”
“Where’s the bird? Get up and show it me directly, you young lubber,”
said his conqueror, keeping a fast hold of his prisoner’s collar, the
better to secure the execution of the bargain. Bill sulkily obeyed, and
produced Feltie from his pocket. But the jolting and banging produced by
Bill’s headlong flight in his heavy hob-nailed boots had been too much
for Feltie; he still breathed, but his eyes were shut and he was in fact
quite unconscious of what was going on. The vicar’s boy let go Bill’s
collar, and taking Feltie in both hands, began to walk back to the
vicarage gate.
In two minutes he and Feltie were in the snug warm drawing-room of the
vicarage, where his mother and three sisters were sitting by the fire at
work.
“My _dear_ George,” said the mother from her armchair as the boy came
in, “how can you go out a day like this without a greatcoat? And what in
the world have you got there?”
“Don’t be frightened, mother,” said George, as he sat down on the
hearthrug to thaw; “it’s only a fieldfare.”
“What is a fieldfare, George?” asked his youngest sister.
“First of all, Miss Minnie,” answered George, “a fieldfare is a bird;
secondly, it’s a kind of thrush; thirdly, it only comes here in winter;
fourthly, it eats berries; and fifthly, if you don’t go and get some
brandy quickly, this one will die, for it’s all skin and bone, and
hasn’t had the ghost of a berry inside it this last week, _I_ should
say.”
“Brandy, George! Who ever heard of a bird drinking brandy!”
“Now do you ladies want to save this bird’s life, or do you not?” said
Master George impatiently. “Because if you do, Minnie will go and shut
up the cat and dog, and Edith go and get some drops of brandy, and Katie
will get me a quill pen to pour the brandy down his throat with, and
mother--”
“And mother will take care of the bird until George has changed his
jacket, for he’s dripping on to the hearthrug like old Father
Christmas,” said the mother, and quietly took Feltie out of his hand
into her lap, where she began to stroke him gently. “Now, George, make
haste, or he’ll die before you’re down again.”
They all ran off on their several commissions, and when George came down
again, still putting on his jacket in his hurry, they were all assembled
round the mother, who had Feltie on a napkin in her lap, and was cutting
a quill pen into a proper shape for giving him the first and last
medicine he ever had in his life. George held the bird’s beak open,
while she deftly contrived to slip a single drop of brandy in half a
teaspoonful of water down his throat; in five minutes she gave him
another dose, and then another; and now Feltie’s eyes opened wide, and
his feathers began to quiver slightly all over him.
“Now, mother, put your two hands over him, and keep him quite warm for a
bit. He’ll do, I expect,” said George.
It was a bold experiment to give a bird brandy-and-water, but on this
occasion it answered its purpose. In another hour or two Feltie was able
to eat a few shreds of meat, which were given him at the suggestion of
the vicar, who had now come in, and was taking much interest in his
recovery. Then he wanted to go to sleep, but the bright light of the
room made him feel very uncomfortable, and the loud human voices sounded
harsh and strange in his ears. There was much discussion as to where he
should be put for the night; but the vicar decided that he should sleep
in the conservatory, which was warmed with hot water. So they carried
him there in procession, and left him in a warm corner on a heap of the
gardener’s matting, with plenty of scraps of meat and crumbs, and a
saucer of water if he should be thirsty in the night. So Feltie fell
fast asleep, and dreamt of poor Cocktail all alone and frozen under the
gorse on Salisbury plain; and George too fell fast asleep in his snug
bed, and dreamt that a whole flock of fieldfares were come to the
vicarage, asking for brandy-and-water to be given them with a quill pen.
Next morning George was down betimes, half dressed, and in a state of
great excitement, to see how his fieldfare was getting on. But Feltie
was awake still earlier, and had already taken his breakfast when
George opened the conservatory door. He felt quite strong again, and
with his strength had returned all his dread of human beings. So no
sooner was the boy inside the door, than he began to flutter among the
plants, and then flew up to the glass roof and tried to struggle through
it. Then he came down again, and smelling the fresh air coming through
the door, was attracted in that direction, and in another minute was
free. Off went George after him--over the garden wall, where he dropped
a slipper, for he had not had time to put on his boots; across the road,
through the hedge, which tore his trousers and scratched his face; over
the orchard, and up into the stubble-field beyond, where a shepherd who
was tending the new-born lambs that had been dropped in spite of the
snowstorm, was much astonished to see the vicar’s son tearing along
without a hat, without his boots, and with his usually neat collar
flying behind him secured by only a single button. But still Feltie went
on, and George, seeing that he was able to shift for himself, gave up
the pursuit, and consoled himself by a talk with the shepherd about the
young lambs and their mothers, before he went home to dress and tell
his tale.
Meanwhile Feltie had perched on a hedge some distance away, and began to
look about him. “What was this he felt? Surely it was not so cold, and
the wind was blowing gently from the south-west. Was not the snow
melting?” (Master George’s right foot had found that out as soon as he
got over the garden-wall.) “Was not it beginning to rain?”
“Chak-chak! Chak-chak!” cried Feltie, suddenly finding his voice: “the
storm is over, the fields will be soft again, the worms will come to the
surface, and perhaps the sun will shine again soon! Chak-chak!”
His voice was answered feebly from a distance. Then over a hedge came
half-a-dozen fieldfares, flying weakly, as he had done the day before.
He joined them, and they gave him welcome, and told him how they too had
gone southwards, a brave band of fifteen, of whom only six were now
alive; how they had gone on and on till they had reached a stormy sea
which they were too weak to cross; and how they had turned back again
in despair, and were now returning northwards.
Feltie told them his story too; and then the seven set out on their
journey; and in the afternoon the sun shone warmly out of the rainy
clouds, the lark rose in the air and sang, the robins sat on moist twigs
and cheered them with a strain as they passed; the streams rose, full of
melting snow, and rushed over their banks into the meadows, moistening
them and making them soft and pleasant to the searching bills of hungry
birds: the air was soft, wet, and delicious, and in the fields they
heard the bleating of the young lambs, and the calls of neighbouring
parties of fieldfares and redwings.
At last when they neared the familiar spot which Feltie had left but a
few days before, he bade farewell to his fellow-travellers and turned
with a beating heart in the direction of the well-known elm-trees,
standing in the flat meadows where the stream wound here and there under
its brambly archway.
His loud “chak-chak” was answered: there were some old friends there
still. There was Jill: and there too was Jack: they had saved their
lives, then, by staying in the friendly park among the thorn-trees. But
that terrible storm had done its work upon the little company: more than
half were still missing, and Feltie himself was almost the last
straggler to arrive. Many an adventure had to be narrated, and many a
story of struggle for life and death; but there was none so thrilling as
the winter’s tale that Feltie had to tell, and no loss so sadly to be
bewailed as the death of the brilliant Cocktail in the gorse on the
dreary frozen down.
OUT OF TUNE.
“Spirits are not finely touched
But to fine issues.”
In a certain manufacturing town, of no great size, there lived a
musician. For the most part he gained his living by playing at concerts
and giving lessons; but he was young, ardent, and clever, and he had
always nursed a hope that he might one day be a great composer. He felt
a soul of music within him, that wanted to come out and express itself.
But, though he had had a complete training in composition, and had
written much music and published a little, no one took any notice of
what he composed; it was too good to sell well (so he used to say, and
perhaps it was true), and he had never had a chance of having any of his
larger works performed in public. And he began to get rather irritable
and impatient, so that his wife was sometimes at her wits’ end to know
how to cheer him up and set him to work once more with a good heart.
Great was the poor man’s delight when one day a letter arrived from the
town clerk, to tell him that on the approaching visit of the Prince of
Wales to open the new Town Hall, a grand concert was to be given, in
which works by natives of the town were to be performed; and that he was
invited to write a short cantata for voices and orchestra. A liberal sum
was to be paid him, and he was to train his own choir, to have the best
artists from London to help him, and to conduct his composition himself.
The news put him in such a state of high spirits that now the prudent
wife was obliged to pour a little cold water on his ambition, and tell
him that he must not expect too much success all at once. But she made
him comfortable in their little parlour, and kept the neighbours from
breaking in upon his work; and for some time the cantata went on at a
flowing pace, until nearly half of it was done.
After a while however the musician’s brain began to rebel against being
kept in all day hard at work, and to refuse to keep quiet and rest in
soothing sleep at night. It said as plainly as possible--“If you will go
on driving me in harness all day long, I shall be obliged to fidget at
night, and what is more, it is quite impossible for me to do such good
work in the day as I used to. So take your choice: either you must give
me repose sometimes, or I must cease to be able to find you beautiful
melodies, and to show you how to treat them to the best advantage.” But
the musician did not know that his brain was complaining in this way,
though his wife heard it quite well; and he went on driving it harder
than ever, whipping it up and spurring it on, though it had hardly any
strength left to pull the cantata along with it. And all this time he
was shutting himself away from his friends, who used formerly to come
often and refresh him with a friendly chat in the evenings; he refused
to go with his wife and visit the very poor people whom they had been
in the habit of comforting out of their slender store; he lost his
temper several times with his pupils, and one day boxed a boy’s ears for
playing a wrong note twice over, so that the father threatened to summon
him before the magistrates and have him fined for assault; and his wife
began at last to fear that his stroke of good luck had done him more
harm than good.
One morning he got up after a restless night, in which his poor brain
had been complaining as usual without being taken any notice of, and
settled himself down in the parlour after breakfast with the cantata,
feeling worried and tired both in his body and mind. With great labour
and trouble he finished the last chorus of his first part, and uttered a
sigh of relief. The next thing to be done was to write the first piece
of the second part, which was to be an air for a single voice, and was
to be sung at the concert by one of the best singers in the country. All
the rest of the cantata had been thought out carefully before he began
to write; but this song, for which beautiful words were chosen from an
old poet, had never worked itself out in his brain so as to satisfy him.
And now the poor brain was called upon for inspiration, just at a time
when it was hardly fit even to do clerk’s work.
He tried to spur it up with a pipe of tobacco, but not a bit would it
budge. Then he took a dose of _sal volatile_; but the effect of it only
lasted a few minutes, and then he felt even more stupid than before.
Then he opened the window and looked out into their little back-garden,
just as a gleam of sunshine shot down through a murky sky. This made him
feel a little better, and he returned to his desk, and sat for a few
moments looking at the words which he was to set to music, feeling
almost as if he were now going to make a little way. But the sunshine
had also made the canary in the window feel a little warm-hearted, and
it burst out into such a career of song, that the room seemed to be
echoing all over with its strains. And all his own music fled at once
out of the distracted composer’s head.
“You little noisy fiend!” he cried angrily, “putting in your miserable
little twopenny pipe, when a poor human artist is struggling to sing.
Don’t you know, you little wretch, that art is long and time is
fleeting?”
He jumped up, took down the cage with an ungentle hand, and carried it
into another room, where he drew a heavy shawl over it and shut the
door. The canary’s song was stifled, but the musician’s song was not a
bit the better for it. And after a while there came another annoyance.
The house was small and not very solidly built, and though the room
where he was at work did not look out on the street, any street-calls,
bands, hurdy-gurdys, or such like noise-making enemies, could be heard
there quite distinctly. This time it was a street-boy whistling a tune;
it was not a bad tune, and it was whistled with a good heart; indeed the
boy put so much energy into his performance, that he must have been in
very high spirits. And why did he stop there so long? Generally they
passed by, and the tails of their tunes disappeared in the distance, or
they turned down the next street. But this one was clearly stopping
there on purpose to annoy the composer.
He went softly into the front room, keeping out of sight from the
window. He was seized with a desire to wreak vengeance on this
tormentor, but he was not quite clear how to do it, and must survey his
ground first. Stepping behind the window-curtain, he peeped out between
the curtain and the window-frame, and saw a small boy, whistling hard,
with a long string in his hand, which descended into the area below. The
musician stood on tiptoe, and looked down into the area; it was a sort
of relief to him to see what this urchin was about. At the end of the
string he perceived a dead mouse, which was being made to jump up and
down and counterfeit life, as well as was possible under the
circumstances, for the benefit of a young cat of the household, who was
lying in wait for it, springing on it, and each time finding it drawn
away from her just as she thought her claws were fast fixed in it. This
boy was in fact an original genius, who had invented this way of amusing
himself; he called it cat-fishing, and it was excellent sport.
The musician suddenly flung up the window, and faced the boy, who seemed
by no means disconcerted; he only left off whistling and looked hard at
the musician.
“What are you doing with the cat?” said the latter, with all the dignity
he could put on. “What business have you to meddle with my cat, and make
that infernal din in front of my house?”
The boy began slowly to haul up the string, looking all the while
steadily at the composer.
“I say, guv’nor,” he said, with a mock show of friendly interest, “do
you know as you’ve got a blob of ink at the end o’ your nose?”
The composer was taken aback. He certainly did not know it, but nothing
was more likely, considering how he had been pulling his moustache and
scratching his head with fingers which, as he glanced at them, showed
some traces of ink. He put his hand involuntarily to his nose, and half
turned to the glass over the chimney-piece. There was not a stain there:
the nose was innocent of ink. Instantly he returned to the window, but
the boy was gone; all that was left of him was a distant sound of
“There’s nae luck aboot the house” far down the street. The composer
went gloomily back to his study, without a particle of music in his
brain; the canary and the whistler had driven it all away. He sat down
mechanically at his desk, but he might as well have sat down at the
kitchen-table and tried to make it play like a piano.
He got up once more, and looked out of the window. The sun was again
shining, and the little garden, fenced in between brick walls which
caught the sunshine, and enlivened with a few annuals (for it was early
summer), did not look altogether uninviting. At the end of it was a
little arbour which he had built himself, and a rose tree that he had
planted against it was already beginning to blossom. The composer
thought he would go and quiet himself down in this little arbour, and
try and get his thoughts fixed upon the air he was to write. Out he
went, and seated there, began to feel more at ease. After a while he
began to think once more of the old poet’s lines; and feeling as if
music were coming into his brain again, went and fetched his manuscript
and his pen and ink, to be ready in case he should have musical thoughts
to write down.
Suddenly there broke in upon his peace the loud, shrill song of a wren.
It was close to him, just outside the arbour; and when a wren sings
close to you, it pierces your ears like the shrillest whistle ever blown
by schoolboy. It was all unconscious of the presence of the composer so
close to its nest, which it had built in the branches of the rose-tree
that climbed up outside; and it hopped down for a moment on the gravel
just in front of the arbour to pick up some fragment of food. The
composer’s nerves were quite unstrung by its sudden outburst of
self-asserting song; it was an insult to music, to the poet, and to
himself. No sooner did the tiny bird appear, as complacent and hearty as
all wrens are, than he seized the ink-bottle, and like Luther at
Wittemburg, flung it wildly at the little fiend that thus dared to
disturb his peace. Of course he missed his aim; of course he broke the
ink-bottle and spilt the ink; and alas! when he returned from picking up
the bits, a splash from the bottle had fallen in a grand slanting puddle
over the neat manuscript of the last page of the chorus which concluded
his second part. And as he stood beholding it in dismay, lo! the voice
of that irrepressible little wren, as shrill and pert as ever, only a
little further off!
If the musician had not quarrelled with his brain, and if the struggle
between them had not put his nerves all out of tune--if he had been then
the gentle and sweet-tempered artist he generally was--he would have
laughed at the idea of such a little pigmy flouting him in this
ridiculous way. As it was, he growled under his breath that everything
was against him, crushed his hat on his head, took the manuscript into
the house and locked it up in a drawer, wrote a hurried note to his
wife, who had gone put, to say he had gone for a long walk and would not
be back till late, and sallied out of the house where no peace was any
longer possible for him.
He walked fast, and was soon out of the town and among the lanes. They
were decked with the full bloom of the wild roses, and the meadows were
golden with buttercups; but these the composer did not even see. Birds
sang everywhere, but he did not hear them. He was just conscious that
the sun was shining on him, but his eyes were fixed on the ground, and
his mind was so full of his own troubles that there was no room in it
for anything nicer to enter there. He was thinking that his song would
never be written, for he could not bear to write anything that should be
unworthy of those words, or second-rate as music; and it seemed as if
his brain would never again yield him any music that he could be
satisfied with. “I shall be behindhand,” he thought to himself. “I shall
have to write and say I can’t carry out my undertaking; my one chance
will be lost, and all my hopes with it. I shall lose my reputation and
my pupils, and then there will be nothing left but beggary and a
blighted life!” And he worked himself up into such a dreadful state that
when he was crossing a river by a bridge, it did actually occur to him
whether it would not be as well to jump over the parapet and put an end
to his troubles once for all. His mind was so full of himself that for a
moment he forgot even his wife and child, and all his friends and
well-wishers.