Black is a fighter: brave, daring, sometimes foolhardy; but “Terror”
is, and always will be, a hanger-on.
When all danger is past, and the owl has flown away, he sneaks forward
and receives his usual share of the booty. He assists the angry warrior
in every possible manner: licks his wounds, rubs him dry, and offers
him his stomach as a nose-warmer.
Unfortunately for the little fellow, he does not understand in the
least how to profit by the talents bestowed on him by Mother Nature;
neither as humorist nor as weather-prophet can he earn his daily bread.
All the more desperately, therefore, he clings to his brother;
seeking, by means of constant vigilance and servility, to make himself
indispensable to the fighter.
A few days later they are both lying asleep under a hedge, when
“Terror” hears a twittering and sits up. Raising his head, he peeps
cautiously out over the grass, and sees a blackbird catching worms on
the turf.
Just then another blackbird joins the first, forcing Tiny to duck down
hurriedly.
While still in his hiding-place, he turns his head slowly to one side,
pushing his ears at the same time, if possible, still farther forward.
The slightest movement, he knows, is dangerous if done openly....
Now he is ready to let his yellow orbs, like twin searchlights, sweep
in a new direction; again he sticks up his head.
“Hurrah!” He almost jumps with joy at the sight that meets his eyes.
The freshly harvested pea-field before him is literally carpeted with
small hedge-sparrows! Oh, how his heart beats! He can feel its ticking
in every toe-tip ... small hedge-sparrows, the best of all! Um-m-m!
His sinews twist and stretch in sympathy with his mental exaltation,
and his coat bulges with his expanding muscles.... Blackbirds on one
hand, sparrows on the other--and now a little dike-chat just overhead!
He can’t resist craning his neck to watch the little dear.... How his
stalking qualities are being tested to-day!
But it is too big a job for “Terror”; he must wake Black--and he
touches the slumbering god gingerly with his paw.
“Madness” laboriously raises one sleep-laden eyelid; and at first is
inclined to thrash the other for his supposed clumsiness. But upon
catching sight of his assistant’s strained expression he understands
that something good to eat must be in the neighbourhood.
He jumps up and looks round.
Then, to Tiny’s almost tearful amazement and disappointment, the great
man, instead of holding a council of war, curls up again and goes to
sleep.
Black is an old hand; he knows that birds are best stalked after dark!