Part 3

He came again and again, and the more he saw of his little sweetheart, the deeper he fell in love. She was as pretty as seven in her little brown mantle with yellow facings, and her dainty head in its red hood was poised on her neck with an incomparable grace. Saucy and alert, she was as slight and slim as a flower waving in the breeze, as bright as a sunbeam piercing through the leaves, as agile as the wind. Dewdrops seemed to sparkle in the depths of her little round pupils. She was a vision of the spring-tide made into a bird!

True, our hero was no less brave to see. Gallant and gay, he cocked his beak boldly and carried the colours of his race with becoming pride.

At last the wedding-day was fixed; but the bride’s trousseau was still to seek. No doubt birds are able to start housekeeping at small cost, neither needing tables and chairs nor pots and pans; still, there must be some little fitting-out to be done.

And so thought the bride’s parents, who were prudent people, and loved their daughter.

A fine to-do there was, to be sure, on the bough where the old couple had their home; a stir that never ceased all day long kept the green hangings of the house shaking, and the doors banging; everlasting comings and goings turned the stairways upside down. Pale and eager-eyed, the little hen-goldfinch awaited the happy hour when she could fly away with her mate.

VI

Soon the news of the betrothal spread amongst the neighbours. The nearest trees were all agog; nothing was to be heard but twitterings and whisperings, not to mention backbitings, for envy is to be found everywhere in this world. The tomtits above all took a delight in saying evil of the bride, calling her a silly, insipid little thing; they chirped and chattered, whistled and whispered, pecking and pulling to pieces the poor innocent child’s good name. In vain the bullfinches, good, decent bodies, tried to interfere: the tomtits’ cackle quite drowned their grave remonstrances. The critics had enlisted a naughty grisette, a chaffinch, a minx who had kicked over the traces in her day, and was renowned for her spiteful tongue; a blackbird too had joined the conspiracy, and now, perched all together on a high branch, from which they could spy upon the comings and goings of the goldfinch household, they kept up a famous uproar.

The Master of Ceremonies of the birds’ parish arrived in the afternoon; he had come to inquire the hour at which the young folks were to be married, and if they wanted choristers to attend. It was agreed to engage a lark and a chaffinch; nightingales were too expensive. A pretty carpet of green would be laid down, as green as on the finest summer’s day; the porch was to be decorated with anemones, and the chancel with daisies; the sun would be ordered for five o’clock, to make a grand show of purple and gold. Of course the drones would be at the organ, and they would ask the wind to give them a helping hand by roaring in the pipes. The harebells would strike up a merry peal at peep of day, and ring till the bridal pair arrived. The holy-water stoup would be filled with dew. As for incense, the violets would see the censers were well filled, and the bees would keep them swinging all through the ceremony.

I forgot to tell you that a wedding breakfast had been ordered, at which, besides flies and worms galore, they were to regale themselves on a cricket and a locust—a magnificent spread indeed. The nearest spring would supply the wine; they were to have corn-berries for dessert, and the table would be laid in the thickest of an apple-tree in full blossom, where a cloud of gnats was always buzzing and making beautiful music. A yellowhammer was invited; he was a rollicking blade, and there was nobody to match him at singing a comic song.

All was going as well as could be; yet how long seemed the hours of waiting to the little bridegroom! To and fro he flitted, up and down the roads he sauntered, trying to cheat his impatience by incessant movement; presently he would light on a bough and fall a-dreaming, while his little heart beat fast and furiously.

Every minute he kept glancing up at the great dial God has set in the sky, and which only the birds can read; but the sunbeam which is the hand of this aerial clock would _not_ move fast enough for his impatience. He could only bewail his lot, and force himself to drop asleep to kill the lagging time. He even went to see the village clockmaker, an old cuckoo, a greybeard bird with a nid-nodding head, who all day long used to strike the hours with exasperating punctuality, and besought him to quicken up the evening a bit.

But the cuckoo shook his head.

“Little madcap,” he told him, “am I to put out all the folk of the countryside for you? Don’t you know everything goes on by rule and regulation among your neighbours, and that each hour brings its own tasks? Why, whatever would they think if I rang vespers before the great timepiece of the heavens had indicated the time of twilight? What would the mole say if I brought him out of his underground house, looking black as a collier, before nightfall, and if suddenly the sun dazzled him with its light—poor purblind fellow who had never in his life dared look at anything but the moon?”

So, the cuckoo having shown him the door, he wandered off again, flitting from hedgerow to hedgerow, burning with impatience.

VII

A heap of little white grubs lay under the hedge of an orchard. More for lack of anything else to do than because he was hungry, the goldfinch flew up and fell upon it.

Ah! have a care, pretty birdie. A man was busy thereabouts just now.

But, alas, it is too late; a whole life of happiness is ruined by a moment’s curiosity. Hardly had the poor fellow plunged his beak in the mass when a string pulled the catch; down comes the trap, and he is a prisoner. Then the shape crouching behind a tree comes out from its hiding-place; it approaches, looms larger and larger, turns into a big bearded man, who opens enormous great hands, seizes the poor bird, and claps it in a cage, grinning a broad grin of satisfaction. Good-bye, little bride! Good-bye, marriage-feast and wedding-march! Good-bye, woods and orchards, gardens and flowers! Good-bye, twittering nests! Good-bye, life and love!

Consternation nailed our little hero to the spot; something had befallen him he could make nothing of; he gazed at the cage with haggard eyes, too scared to think.

Ah! if only he had lost his memory! But this consolation was denied him. He shook himself, dashed at the bars, pecked and bit at them, thinking maybe they would open and leave him free as air again.

But no; the bars would _not_ give way.

Then he shuddered from head to foot. Anger and terror frenzied his little brain. He flew wildly at the bars; but all in vain—the cage was solid and strong.

Suddenly he realised his calamity, and, filled with a perfect frenzy of despair, with panting breath and trembling, shuddering limbs, he hurled himself at the bars, beat his head against the wires, tearing and lacerating beak and claws, flew madly up and down, breaking his wings, till, battered and bruised, his feathers all dripping with blood, exhausted and out of breath, he rolled half-dead into a corner.

It was all over!

While joy was paramount yonder in his bride’s home, while song and laughter were the order of the day, while preparations for the wedding—bitter mockery!—were completing, and all things, leaves and butterflies and nests, were a-flutter, the poor bridegroom lay in his agony amid the silence of a prison.

VIII

Evening lit up the sky with its gleaming tints of copper; little by little the chattering family groups fell silent, and the darkling trees assumed the look of long-drawn, solemn colonnades. Alas! it was not under this familiar aspect that night fell for our captive goldfinch. A dirty whitewashed wall, on which hung strangely shaped objects, replaced the sable curtain spangled with stars that twilight spreads over the countryside. A guttering, flaring candle smoked on the table, bearing how faint a resemblance to the silver moon! and by its sordid light the hard-hearted wretch who had robbed him of his liberty was moving to and fro.

Ah! what right had he, this miserable birdcatcher, this highway robber, to tear him from the free air, the hedgerows and the green fields? Tiny though he be, is the bird therefore of no import to the leaves, the winds, the trees, which without him would be voiceless? Has the blue sky no need of his outspread wings, his echoing song, the flutter of his plumage?

What use the pool glittering in the woodland, if he was not there to dip his beak in it and absorb in a drop of water the red of dawn, the gold of noon, the deep shadow of the quivering leaves? Is not a little bird the less a disaster in the forests and orchard-closes, a voice silenced in the symphony of nature, a furrow left barren in the fields of space, a bright point vanished from the azure sky? Is not the universe disturbed for the loss of a little creature wherein all nature is summed up and glorified?

The man blew out the taper, and a moonbeam shot in at the garret-window and fell on the poor captive.

It formed, as it were, a luminous rail on which his thoughts glided; and they always travelled in one direction—to his little _fiancée_, who at that moment, softly cradled by the night wind, was fast asleep and dreaming of the great to-morrow.

The moon paled and daylight appeared.

Yonder no doubt all was ready; the harebells were ringing their peal, the drones were organing their deep music, while the trembling bride, white as the lilies, was asking herself why her bridegroom did not come.

The cuckoo clanged out the hour of dawn. One and all were ready for the fête; only _his_ arrival was waited for.

The hours slipped by without his appearing, and little by little the murmuring and muttering, low at first, grew louder and louder, and rose into a perfect tempest of cries and jeers and gibes. The chaffinches were jubilant, the parents disconsolate. And what of her, the poor, despairing bride? Her pretty innocent eyes could not bear the light of day; stricken to the heart by this unaccountable desertion, she was borne away fainting, half dead with shame and sorrow.

IX

Dark days followed. At first only a prisoner, his cruel master now made him into a galley-slave. He put a chain round his foot, and condemned him to the servitude of the car and cord. So drag your weight, work your pulley, haul in your little car, poor outcast! Who has not seen the monstrous spectacle—one of God’s creatures, created to fly free in the realms of air, coming and going on a toy platform, a ring about its leg? Who has not seen the unhappy captive, to win meat and drink, drawing up by little laborious jerks the water-jar and car, its eye gleaming with pitiful longing, gaining its subsistence by a never-ending useless martyrdom? Only he who has seen the cruel sight knows to what lengths the cruelty of bad men can go.

This was the fate of the poor goldfinch.

The man had given him a cage to imitate a Swiss châlet, in front of which was a little terrace. On the terrace was fixed a post, with a pulley attached worked by a thread. This thread the captive had to pull in with his beak, little by little, till the little drinking-bucket hooked to the other end rose to the level of the platform; then putting his foot on the cord, he had to hold it in place and so drink a drop, bitter as a tear, hurriedly and fearfully, lest the thread should slip from under his claw and suddenly let the bucket run down again.

More often than not the bucket upset in its descent, and then he had to go without water for the rest of the day.

A second thread made it possible for him to haul to the edge of the platform a miniature car running on an inclined plane outside the cage; this held his bird-seed. What a struggle it was to drag it up! At each snap of the beak the car would ascend, but oh! so slowly. By successive jerks, never tiring, never stopping, with straining neck, working with the adroitness of a galley-slave, and clapping his foot on the cord after each pull, he had to drag up the accursed car, which would sometimes elude him and dash down the incline again, spilling the seed and mocking all his laborious efforts!

A hundred times a day he was forced to begin the horrid task again.

Many a time the goldfinch resolved to give in and die of hunger; but hunger is a terrible thing, and no sooner did its pangs begin to pinch his little stomach than he would seize the cord afresh and pull for dear life.

X

So passed the hours for the once happy bridegroom. Never a chirp now, never a flirt of the tail! Disconsolate and draggled, every feather of his little body betraying the misery of his broken life, he seemed an embodiment of the bitter protest of the winged creation against the cruelty of man.

A feeble ray of sunshine used to flicker on the garret walls towards midday; he would watch for it, and when it came at last, shooting a slender pencil of gold, in which the dust-motes danced athwart the gloom of his prison-house, it was like a brief instant of recovered freedom; for a moment he forgot his chain, his car, his slavery, and away he flew in fancy to the great orchards that showed their black masses of shadow on the horizon. Alas! the sunbeam slid along the wall and disappeared, and the appalling reality came home to him again.

What had he done to deserve this cruel fate? To filch a grain of corn here and there, to forage in the kitchen-gardens, to play the truant, to make the most of life, all day long to fly hither and thither, the free denizen of air—was this a crime? He never reflected how he had forgotten his mother, and that this crime alone deserved the sternest expiation.

His master was one of those good-for-nothing workmen who make the whole week a series of Sundays. One night he forgot to come home at all; next morning the ill-starred captive found bucket and car both empty. No use hauling them up to him and pecking about in every corner; never a grain of seed was to be found, never a drop of water! Then indeed he knew the torments of hunger and thirst. In vain he toiled at his cruel, slavish task; the car ascended, the bucket rose, but without bringing solace to his famished cravings. His tools refused their office; with pale eyes of consternation the poor prisoner gazed at them, and could not understand.

As if by the irony of fate, the window had been left wide open, and he could plainly see the green of the nearest trees, in which the birds, his more fortunate brethren, were squabbling. He saw the sun slowly sink and the shadows of the house-roofs lengthen. Then a frenzy of madness seized him; with quick, frantic pecks he tore at the chain riveted round his leg, and by sheer fury burst its rings.

To dart to the window, to sail away for the paling blue of the sky, was the work of an instant; but next minute he fell to earth again, so weak was he with hunger. Luckily, not far from the foot of the tree where he had dropped, a flock of pigeons was enjoying a feast of oats at the door of a stable. He joined the band, and in a very short while had plumped his crop to such good purpose that he felt his full strength come back to him.

A long time had passed since he had quitted his bonny bride, and he trembled to think what changes the days might have brought with them in her life. Still the longing to see her again grew so irresistible after he had been free an hour that, even if she had forgotten him, he was fain to bid her farewell.

And pr-r-r-rt! he was off like the wind.

All the world was asleep when he arrived—even the tomtits, those inveterate gossips, who love to loiter at their doors long after dark, talking scandal of their neighbours.

“Little bride! little bride!” he breathed softly.

A yellowhammer answered him in a cross voice—

“Third tree to the left in the next orchard!”

Why, actually the goldfinches had removed! He hurried to the tree indicated, and once again, “Little bride!” he whispered.

A faint cry answered, and next moment his sweetheart appeared.

“I was waiting for you,” she cried.

Ah! these were happy moments that made up for all their sufferings. He told her all his adventures; she told him how her faith in him had never faltered. They woke the parents, who warmly welcomed the returned prodigal.

“Just think,” said the mother, “those odious chaffinches positively forced us to leave the neighbourhood. Life was become unbearable; morning, noon, and night it was nothing but insulting remarks. But now you are come back again! So these spiteful folks will be finely confounded.”

Another old hen-goldfinch was there, who was gazing at him with wet eyes and wings all a-tremble.

“Ah!” cried our hero, “why, it is mamma, my poor mother I had forgotten so long!”

Yes, it was his mother indeed: his little bride, after his disappearance, had never wearied till she found her, telling herself that, with her for company, there would be two of them to wait for his return.

Their happiness was complete.

Two days after, but soberly this time, without drum or trumpet, the wedding was solemnised.

The story has its moral, as every story should. It was the goldfinch’s father-in-law who undertook to draw it for his young friend’s benefit.

“Son-in-law,” he said, “I hope you will teach your little ones two lessons. The first is—never forget your mother; the second—beware of traps in the hedgerows.”

Strange Adventures of a Little White Rabbit

Four little rabbits had seen the light in a hutch snugly stuffed with straw, where they lived cosy and warm by their mother’s side.

They were pretty, plump little things, all four as fat as butter, and just as well-liking one as the other; but while three of them had white bellies and dappled backs, one was white all over from head to foot, and his mother was mighty proud of his beauty, you may be sure.

You could not have found so exquisite a rabbit, no, not for three leagues round, and every day he grew handsomer and handsomer, like a king’s son. Two great rubies glittered in his fine eyes, and his teeth were just like the edge of a saw; yes, and he had a moustache—three hairs, which made him, oh! so conceited.

Mother Rabbit loved them all tenderly; but she loved Jannot, her firstborn, best of all.

To begin with, he was the eldest; then she had had more trouble to rear him, and ill-health always draws a closer bond between mother and child; besides, she was inordinately proud of his white coat, and dreamt he was destined for greatness. What form would it take? This she could not tell. Perhaps he would take first prize at a show—perhaps he would found a breed of white rabbits like himself. She lavished every delicacy upon her darling, and his prospective honours consoled her for the triviality of everyday existence.

They would soon be two months old, and that is the age when young bunnies are taken from their mothers. She dreaded the moment of parting; Jannot would have to go with the rest.

In fact, all four were weaned by this time; they were beginning to gnaw at carrots now, and would often try to get out through any gaps they could find, for they longed to see the great world. The hutch had open bars, and they could look out into a kitchen-garden with lettuce-beds, and beyond that see a flock of ducks paddling about beside a brook. There was an apple-tree to the right, with a cloud of sparrows always squabbling round it. To the left an outhouse door gave a glimpse of cows and horses, dimly outlined in the gloom of the interior. There were cats, too, stretching themselves in the sun or stalking sedately up and down.

At peep of day the whole farmyard woke up; noon brought a momentary silence; then, as the sun grew hotter, sparrows chirped, ducks quacked, cows lowed, and the din went on uninterruptedly till dusk.

The little bunnies would fain have joined the other animals; they would gaze wistfully at the birds flying high in the air, and the sight of the cattle marching off cheerfully for the pastures gave them a craving for the green fields.

How big the farmyard seemed, to be sure! and how amazed they were when Mother Rabbit told them there were other places bigger still which they could not see. She described the woods and ravines and burrows, for she knew these well enough from hearsay; why, they could not have travelled round the world in a whole day, so enormous it was! Squatted round their mother, the youngsters listened to all this, and their hearts almost failed them.

But not so Jannot; _his_ imagination was stimulated by what he heard.

“Ah!” he would cry, “will they never let me out, that I may have _my_ chance of seeing all these wonderful things?”

Then his mother was alarmed; but he would kiss her and promise he would come back again directly, once he had seen the world. But she only shook her head, and could not make up her mind to let him go.

“The world is full of cruel beasts; you will never, never escape its dangers.”

“I have teeth and claws.”

“So have they, child; but their teeth are longer and their claws sharper than yours. Restrain your eagerness; time enough yet to go forth into the wide, wide world.”

He would shake his head impatiently and fall to gnawing at the woodwork of the hutch; in fact his mind was full of guilty thoughts of escape. At last, one fine morning, when his mother was tidying the litter, he made a bolt for it.

Scarcely had he gone a hundred steps when he was arrested by a startling sight. He beheld half-a-dozen hairy brown skins nailed up in a row. They still retained the shape of the bodies they had once clothed, and little trickles of blood ran down the wall where they hung. There was no mistaking; they had belonged to rabbits like himself.

“Oh, dear!” he thought, “so they kill rabbits, do they?”

But this sinister sight was quickly forgotten in the variety of new wonders he encountered. A pig was grunting on a dunghill, with a young foal kicking at him and destroying his peace of mind, and a goat gambolling near by; one after the other he saw a rat, a dog, a calf, and a flock of pigeons that suddenly took wing.

They rose in the warm morning air, glittering in the sun, flying so high he soon lost sight of them altogether. Looking down again, he noticed a cat watching him, and remembered he had seen her in the garden, prowling among the lettuces.

The width of the yard was between them, and he had a barn behind him. The cat lay crouched on the kitchen steps; she never moved, but her eyes were wide open and glittered cruelly. Then she got up slowly.

Jannot believed his last hour was come; he thought of his mother, and shut his eyes. A furious barking made him open them again. The cat was gone; with one bound Jannot sprang into a cart round which a bull-dog was racing with his mouth wide open, and leapt from there into the barn.

Inside the straw was piled up mountains high, so close to the wall he had some difficulty in forcing a passage; still, it was only betwixt the wall and the straw he could hope to find a safe refuge. He durst not come out again, and stayed there in hiding till nightfall.

Then he plucked up spirit, took a step or two in the dark, and came upon a hole close down to the floor through which he could slip.

What a sight met him outside! The country lay white in the moonlight, house-roofs, pools, watercourses glittering in the beams. The leaves quivered restlessly in the night wind, and the distant clumps of brushwood stood out in clear-cut outline. It was very beautiful; but look! suddenly, close to him, two long, black, moving shadows scared him out of his seven senses.

The cat!