BIRDS'-NESTING
'The busy birds with nice selection cull
Soft thistle-down, gray moss, and scattered wool;
Far from each prying eye the nest prepare,
Formed of warm moss and lined with softer hair.'
Peggy and Bobby sat at the top of a high apple-tree in a cunning little
seat just where one bough crossed another, and, bending up, formed a
kind of armchair with a back to it. Below them the pink apple-blossom
spread like a rosy cloud against the bluest of skies, and a blackbird in
a neighbouring bush was trilling his loudest.
Easter had fallen late, so that the children's spring holidays were not
yet over when the first early delightful days of May brought a foretaste
of the coming summer. Peggy and Bobby were out the whole day long,
following their father about the farm, riding on the slow plough-horses,
helping to drive the sheep, or bringing home the cows from the pasture,
sowing seeds in their little gardens, and generally revelling in the
delicious freedom.
Sometimes Lilian would join them, but more often she was busy indoors,
helping her aunt and Nancy, the maid, and learning the mysteries of
housekeeping and dairy-minding; for she was growing quite a nice little
companion to Aunt Helen, and becoming so useful that Nancy declared they
should scarcely know what to do without her when the term began again.
'What shall we do this afternoon?' said Bobby, leaning back among the
branches in a way that would have brought Aunt Helen's heart to her
mouth if she had not long ago come to the conclusion that small boys
have nine lives, like a cat.
'I don't know,' replied Peggy, idly picking off bits of twig, and
throwing them at the old gander, which had strayed underneath.
'Then let's go birds'-nesting. You can't think how dreadfully I want to
find a cuckoo's egg. Arthur Hill has one at school, and he's so proud of
it, he wouldn't change it though a boy offered him five sticks of
mint-rock and a pea-shooter. I'm sure we ought to get one about here:
I've heard such lots of cuckoos lately. We'll look in every nest we
find.'
'All right, we'll go down the meadows by the river into the hazel-wood.'
'No, no! Up the hill, over the gorse common, and down the yew-tree
lane.'
'You won't find any nests up there!'
'Yes, I shall!'
'I tell you you won't!'
'And I tell you I shall!'
'You were only eight last January, and I shall be twelve in November, so
I ought to know best!' said Peggy crushingly.
'I don't care if you're a hundred!' replied Bobby with scorn. 'Joe was
up there last night, and he found twelve nests, and, what's more, he
told me just where they all are.'
'Then, why couldn't you say so at first? Are you sure you can find
them?'
'Certain; and one of them's a long-tailed tit's, with ever so many eggs
in it. Do you want to go down by the river now?'
'No,' replied Peggy, giving in graciously. 'A bird in the hand is worth
two in the bush, and if Joe really found the nests up there, it's worth
while going to see.'
Bobby climbed down in triumph, for Peggy so generally took the lead that
it was sweet for once to get his own way. He was rather a gentle little
boy, ready as a rule to follow at Peggy's bidding, and to make a lively
second to any scheme she might have in hand. Aunt Helen sometimes
thought the two must have got changed, and that Peggy should have been
the boy and Bobby the girl; for though the latter was not without
courage, it was certainly Peggy who had the most of that enterprising
spirit which is generally thought a characteristic of the masculine
mind.
Though she would not have minded being a genuine boy, Peggy had the
greatest objection to be called a tomboy--a term of reproach that had
been hurled at her head from her earliest infancy by indiscriminating
friends.
'If they meant anything nice by it, I shouldn't care,' she complained.
'But they don't, for a tomboy is a horrid, rough sort of creature who
isn't fit to be either a boy or a girl. It's too bad that I can't even
do useful things without people howling at me. Mrs. Davenport looked
perfectly shocked when I harnessed the pony, though I told her Joe was
milking, and there was no one else to come and do it; and when old Mr.
Cooper saw me help Father to drive cows down the pasture, he popped out
with "Miss Tomboy" at once, though he did say afterwards I was the right
sort of girl. People didn't call Joan of Arc and Grace Darling tomboys,
though they did other things besides stay at home and darn stockings.
Why can't I climb trees and jump fences, and enjoy myself like boys do,
and yet be a thorough girl all the same?'
To do Peggy justice, I think she was right, for though she delighted in
outdoor life, she was in no sense a rough or ill-mannered child, and
loved pretty things and dainty ways as well as quieter Lilian; but it
was a case of a dog with a bad name, for however indignantly she might
remonstrate, people had got into the habit of dubbing her 'tomboy,' and
at that valuation she seemed likely to remain.
The walk which Bobby had proposed this afternoon was somewhat of a
scramble, for the country rose behind the Abbey into undulating hills,
which were fairly steep, though not so high as the Welsh mountains, and
were covered for the most part with gorse and rough grass, where the
sheep and young bullocks were turned out to graze. It was rather a stiff
pull up to the common, but the Vaughans were as accustomed to climbing
as mountain goats, and would have thought it far more wearisome to walk
the length of a London street.
Half-way up was a spot very dear to the children's hearts. At a turn of
the road a great slab of Welsh slatestone lay at a sloping angle,
shelving down for a distance of about twenty feet, and with its surface
so flat and even, and so smooth and polished by the weather, that it
made a natural sliding-board, down which it was delightful to toboggan
at full speed. It seemed expressly formed for the enjoyment of small
boys and girls, for as it lay across a corner, you had only to walk up
the road to get to the top, then settling yourself firmly with feet
straight in front, you let go, and slid like a bolt from an arrow
down--down--till you found your feet on the road again, and could climb
up once more and repeat the performance.
Of course, it was not very nice for the backs of boots and
knickerbockers, and frocks and pinafores were apt to get sadly torn if
they caught on a projecting angle; but what child ever thought of
clothes when a twenty-foot slide might be enjoyed? Certainly not Peggy
or Bobby, whose well-worn garments were generally made of the stoutest
and most serviceable materials.
They spent quite half an hour at this enthralling pastime, till a very
persistent cuckoo in a little copse over the hedge recalled them to the
principal object of their ramble.
'Come along!' shouted Peggy. 'We're wasting time!'
'Let's take the short cut,' cried Bobby, hopping nimbly over the fence
into the meadow, where the kingcups were lying, such a bright mass of
gold in the sunshine that you might have thought the stars had fallen
from the sky and were shining in the fields instead. Little rabbits
scuttled away before them into the hedgerows, and a cock pheasant,
disturbed in his afternoon nap, flew with a great whir into the coppice
close by. Two fields brought them out on to the common, where the gorse
was a blaze of colour and the bees were busy buzzing among the
sweet-smelling blossom.
'Joe said there was a yellowhammer's nest just there, close by the
elder-bush,' said Bobby.
'All right,' said Peggy; 'you take one side of the tree, and I'll take
the other.'
A few minutes' search resulted in a delighted 'S'sh!' from Bobby, for on
a little ledge of rock under an overhanging tussock of grass was the
cosiest, cunningest nest in the world, and the yellowhammer herself sat
on it, looking at them with her bright little eyes, half undecided
whether to stay or to fly away in alarm.
Peggy crept up as quietly as a mouse. Though the children were very
anxious to find nests, it was not in any spirit of ruthless robbery. Mr.
Vaughan was a keen naturalist, and had taught them to watch the birds in
their haunts, but disturb them as little as possible, taking an
occasional egg for their collection, but only when there were so many in
the nest that it would not be missed.
'Isn't she stunning?' whispered Bobby. 'And how tight she sits!'
But a human voice was too much for the yellowhammer, and she flew like a
dart into the gorse-bushes.
'Five eggs,' said Peggy, 'but not one of them a cuckoo's. You don't want
one, do you, Bobby?'
'No, I've got three at home. I had five, but I swopped two of them with
Frank Wilson for a redstart's.'
'Come along, then; she'll soon fly back when we're gone; I believe she
is watching us out of the elder-tree. Where did Joe say the long-tailed
tits had built?'
'Right in the middle of a gorse-bush, just on the top of the mound where
the goat was tethered last year. He calls them bottle-tits, but it's
just the same thing, Father says. Whew! isn't the grass scratchy on your
legs!'
'Horrid! My boots are full of prickles. I shall have to take them off
soon. It's so deep here, it's scratching my very nose. Oh, look, Bobby!
There goes one of the tits! I saw just where she flew from. Oh, here it
is! See, isn't it just the prettiest little nest that ever was?'
The tit's nest would certainly have gained the prize if all the birds
had been asked to take part in a building competition. It was made of
the softest moss and lichens, fashioned together in the shape of a
bottle with the neck downwards; for the tit must have some place in
which to bestow her long tail, and she builds her home to suit her
person.
Peggy thrust a cautious finger through the tiny opening in the side.
'It's full of eggs!' she exclaimed; 'I should think there must be seven
or eight. I'll take two, one for you and one for me. They're the
smallest you ever saw, and so warm. I hope they'll blow easily.'
Bobby had brought a box full of sheep's wool in his pocket, to hold
anything they might find, so Peggy laid the eggs in with great pride,
for bottle-tits were rare in that neighbourhood, and they had long
wished to find such a treasure. Joe had certainly not misled them, and
Bobby's memory, though defective as regarded Latin declensions and
historical facts, was unerring where it was a case of locating
birds'-nests.
He found three thrushes' nests low down in the elder-bushes, all filled
with gaping yellow mouths, the pretty little chaffinch's up in the
ivy-tree, with only two speckly eggs as yet, and Jenny Wren's household,
hidden away in a bank, full of so many children that she surely
resembled the old woman who lived in a shoe, and it was a marvel how she
could remember which little chirping atom she had fed last. The robin
had built early and her brood had flown and left the empty nest; but two
blackbirds were sitting in the hawthorn-hedge, and flew away with cries
of indignation and distress.
The cuckoos were still calling loudly in the distance.
'Tiresome things!' said Bobby; 'if they would only build nests like
other birds, one might have a chance of finding them.'
'"In April the cuckoo comes,
In May she'll stay,
In June she changes her tune,
In July she prepares to fly,
Come August, go she must,"'
quoted Peggy.
'But you haven't said it all,' put in Bobby.
'"And if the cuckoo stays till September,
It's as much as the oldest man can remember."'
'I wish the rhymes would tell us where she lays her eggs,' said Peggy.
She was poking about in the mossy bank as she spoke, when a
hedge-sparrow flew out from the low bushes above almost straight into
her face. It did not take Peggy long to find the neat little nest of
twisted twigs and grass woven into the fork of a branch. There were four
lovely blue eggs inside, and a slightly larger one of a greenish-gray
colour. Peggy flushed all over with excitement.
'Bobby, Bobby!' she screamed, 'come here, quick! I do believe I have
found a cuckoo's egg!'
There seemed little doubt about it, for the egg really looked quite
different to the others; so the treasured find was safely put away in
the small box, to be shown to Joe, who was wise in such lore, though he
only knew the birds by their country names, and had never heard of such
a science as ornithology. Quite elated with their success, the children
hunted down the lane, searching in every bush and hedgerow, but they
found nothing but a few last year's nests, full of acorns and dead
leaves.
They came out by Betsy Owen's cottage--a little low, whitewashed,
tumble-down building, standing in the midst of a neglected garden, with
a very forlorn and deserted air about it.
'Joe says no doubt there'd be lots of nests in the ivy there,' confided
Bobby, peeping through the hedge. 'But he wouldn't go in and see, not if
you gave him five pounds for it.'
'Why not?' demanded Peggy.
'Because old Betsy's a witch, and you never know what she might do if
you made her angry. John Parker and Evan Williams took some sticks from
her hedge last autumn, and she came out in a rage, and crossed her
fingers at them, and in six weeks John broke his leg, and Evan had sore
eyes all the winter. And once Joe and another boy were coming home very
late at night past the cottage, and they saw a bright light, and just as
they reached the gate it went out, and they heard a most fearful shriek,
and they were so frightened they ran all the way home.'
'What nonsense!' said Peggy. 'I expect the old woman was blowing out her
candle to go to bed, and a screech-owl flew over their heads. Joe would
have run away from his own shadow. But if you're afraid, stay outside in
the lane, for I'm going in to see if there's a nest in that ivy; it
looks such a likely place. I don't believe anyone's in the cottage,
either, for the door's shut.'
But Bobby much resented such a slur on his manly courage, and insisted
upon being the one to climb the ivy-covered chimney. He crept quietly
round to the back of the cottage, and swung himself up by the thick
stems, feeling in every little hole where he could lay his hand. The
large old chimney was so wide at the top that he found he could peep
right down it, as if he were looking into a well, and could see a good
piece of the hearth underneath, with a small fire of sticks burning
under a large, three-legged iron pot, and the old woman sitting close by
on a low stool, smoking a short clay pipe.
Betsy Owen was a withered, cross-grained old dame, who by dint of the
knowledge of the uses of some simple herbs and a good deal of cunning,
had contrived to establish a reputation something between a witch and a
quack doctor. People came to her from remote farms to have warts charmed
away or the toothache cured; she dressed burns and wounds, and concocted
lotions for sore eyes and bad legs. Her one room was hung all round with
plants in various stages of drying, and she was always ready to
prescribe a remedy for an ailing cow or a sick child, generally at much
profit to herself, whatever might be the benefit to the sufferer. She
was bending over her iron pot now, stirring the concoction with a
long-handled spoon. Bobby could see her quite plainly in the fire light,
and could catch the curious aromatic smell which rose up from the
smouldering wood. I do not know what prompted him--probably the love of
mischief which dwells in all small boys--but he picked up a loose piece
of mortar which was lying on the roof, and dropped it suddenly down the
chimney. It fell plump into the iron pot with a loud, hissing sound.
Out rushed Betsy from the cottage, scolding furiously. Down dropped
Bobby from the chimney, and was through a hole in the hedge and away
down the lane as fast as his sturdy legs could carry him. Peggy had been
waiting in the garden, and, before she could realize what had happened,
she found herself seized and shaken violently by the angry old woman.
'I'll larn yer to come into other folk's places and drop stones down
decent body's chimleys!' shrieked Betsy. 'Be off with yer, yer
ill-mannered young good-for-naught; and if ever I catch yer here again,
yer'll get such a hidin' yer won't forget it for a month!'
Peggy was so amazed by the suddenness of the attack that for the moment
she offered no resistance; but, finding a storm of blows descending on
her head like hail, she managed to squirm out of Betsy's ungentle grasp,
and fled after Bobby down the lane, followed by a shower of epithets
from the gate, where the old woman stood shaking her fist until long
after the children were out of sight.
When they judged themselves to be at a safe distance the pair sat down
on a fence to get their breath, and talk over their adventure.
'We're in for it now,' laughed Peggy. 'She was so fearfully angry I'm
sure Joe would say she'd bewitched us!'
'Yes, he'll be in a great state of mind when we tell him. He'll quite
expect us to break our arms or legs or necks or something before long!'
'You'll do that without her if you try to swing head downwards on one
leg like that,' said Peggy; for Bobby was executing some marvellous
gymnastics on the top rail of the fence.
He came down feet foremost, however, and they sauntered off along the
road to the old water-mill, where the miller's man was slinging a sack
of flour on to a patient donkey who stood, with drooping ears, eyeing
the burden which he must carry up far into the mountains, while his
mistress, a little black-eyed Welshwoman, poured forth a torrent of
gossip in high-pitched tones.
The wheel was standing idle, and the children went down the slippery
steps to the pool below. It was cool and dark there, for the trees grew
low over the stream, and the water, escaping from the race above, poured
down by the side of the wheel in a foaming cataract. A dipper was
hopping about from stone to stone in the centre of the stream, pruning
her sleek feathers, and calling her lively 'chit, chit' to her mate.
Peggy grasped Bobby by the arm.
'Keep still,' she whispered. 'Let us watch her. Perhaps she may have a
nest somewhere close by.'
All unconscious of her audience, the little bird jerked her short tail,
dived rapidly into the water, and, emerging at the other side of the
pool, flew suddenly into the green, moss-grown wall which overhung the
mill-wheel.
'That's her nest,' cried Bobby. 'Oh, don't you see it? It looks just
like a great lump of moss; you can hardly tell it from the wall, only I
see a little round hole at the bottom. What a shame it's in such a
horrid place! We can never get it up there.'
'Yes, we can,' replied Peggy stoutly. 'I'm going up.'
'But how?'
'Up the mill-wheel, of course, stupid! No, you're not coming too. You
climbed the chimney, and it's my turn. Just hold my hat, and I'll manage
all right, you'll see!'
It was a slippery climb, for the wheel was green with slime, and it
needed a long step to get from one blade to the other; but Peggy was
utterly fearless, and she had soon pulled herself to the top. Balanced
there, she could easily reach to the nest, which was only a few feet
away from her. Out flew the dipper in a panic, and in went Peggy's
fingers.
'Three eggs, Bobby--lovely white eggs! Look! I think I shall take this
one, at any rate.'
She held out her hand to show her prize, but at that instant the
mill-wheel began to turn, and she was whirled from the dizzy summit
down--down--into the dark pool below.
Bobby's agonized shrieks brought out the miller's man, who, dashing into
the stream, caught the child just as she rose to the surface, and
before she had drifted into the swifter current further on. It was a
very forlorn and draggled Peggy which he laid upon the bank, but she was
game to the last.
'I haven't broken the egg,' she gasped out, with the water streaming
from her hair.
'Better thank the Lord you're not drowned, miss,' said the miller's man,
looking ruefully at his own wet garments. 'Let me take you into the
house, and Mrs. Griffiths'll get you some dry clothes to your back;
you'll catch your death of cold sitting there.'
Peggy essayed to get up and walk, but she was such a very water-logged
vessel that to hasten matters her rescuer picked her up in his arms, and
bore her off like a sack of flour.
Stout old Mrs. Griffiths was sitting knitting in the chimney-corner, but
she jumped up in a hurry when John carried in his dripping burden.
'Sakes alive!' she screamed, 'what is it? Is she dead? Lay her out on
the parlour sofa. Sarah Grace, run for the parish nurse and the
Rector--quick!'
But Peggy's voluble tongue assuring her that she was very much alive,
and only in need of drying, she soon hustled that young lady upstairs,
and out of her wet clothes. Ten minutes later Peggy sat on the settle by
the kitchen fire, an odd little figure, attired in Sarah Grace's Sunday
jacket over Mrs. Griffiths' best red flannel petticoat, and a steaming
glass of hot elder wine in her hand.
'Just to keep you from catching cold, miss; and Master Bobby must have
one too, bless his heart! He's as white as my apron, and small wonder,
after seeing his sister half drowned!'