Part 5

“We must do this job all the same, this year,” said Tom, “for the sake of the rent, and then let ’em alone. We must pay that rent, Kites or no Kites: and see what’s to be done next.”

“Well then,” said his father, “you must go without me. You know where to go. There’s no County Council order there against taking the eggs, but all the same, I hope you won’t find ’em. Don’t take a gun: I won’t have the old birds killed, for any collection, public or private.”

Great was the rejoicing in the family when Tom was found to be packing up. His mother gave him a few shillings from her scanty stock, and urged him to bring a bird as well as the eggs; but this Tom steadily refused to do. “Dad’s tender about it,” he said. “We only want the rent, and when that’s paid, I shall look out for another start in life.”

Stephen Lee sat down and wrote this letter to Mr. Gatherum, which next morning greatly astonished that young gentleman in London.

Sir,—It is true that I robbed a Kite’s nest a year ago for your friend Mr. Scotton, and I am sorry I did it, for it was a mean and cruel act in this country, where Kites are almost extinct. Please excuse my freedom.

As I have a wife and six children to feed, and my rent to pay after a bad season, I must accept your offer, and do another mean and cruel act. My wife says that my children have as much right to live as the Kites, and that as I was brought up to this business I must take it as it comes. Women are mostly right when there are children to be thought of, and I must pay my rent. I am sending my son, as I don’t relish the job myself.

Your humble servant,

Stephen Lee.

By return of post there came a letter for Stephen, containing a cheque for twenty-five guineas, which he handed to his astonished wife. The letter ran thus:

Dear Sir,—I send you a cheque for present needs. Your feelings do you credit. I showed your letter to a famous ornithologist, who said that you are a fine fellow, and I am a pestilent one. All I ask of you in return for the cheque is to save the eggs before your son takes them. I am going to Spain, and will send you my skins to set up, and mention your name to others. Let me know as soon as you can whether the eggs are saved.

Yours faithfully,

W. Gatherum.

Mr. Lee rushed to the nearest telegraph office, and wired after his son, “Hold your hand till I come.” Then he put up travelling bag, and went off by the next train for Wales.

III

April was drawing to an end, and the oaks on the Kite’s fortress were growing ever ruddier; on the steep mossy slopes among the rocks the ferns were really beginning to uncurl. All was very quiet and peaceful; over the opposite hill a pair of Buzzards soared about unmolested; the Woodwrens had arrived, to spend the summer among the oaks; the Sandpipers were whistling along the river below, and the trout were lazily rising in the pools among the rocks.

The Baroness was happy and cheerful; the Baron, looking back on the experience of half a century, knew well that a tranquil April does not always lead to a happy May; but he said nothing of his doubts, and encouraged his wife. She had presented him, one after another, with three beautiful eggs; they lay in the nest, which had been built of sticks, and ornamented, according to the ancestral custom of the race, with such pleasing odds and ends as could be found at hand, to occupy her attention during the weary days of her sitting. A long shred of sheep’s wool: a fragment of an old bonnet that had been a scarecrow, blown by winter winds from a cottage garden: a damp piece of the _Times_ newspaper, in which a fisherman’s lunch had been wrapped, containing an account of Lord Roberts’ entry into Bloemfontein; such were the innocent spoils collected to amuse the Baroness. She had been greatly tempted by some small linen put out to dry at the farmhouse; but the Baron kept her away from these treasures, as a needy Peer might keep his Peeress from the jewellers’ shops. Such objects, he told her, were dangerous, and might betray them.

So she sat on her beautiful eggs, greenish white with dark red blotches, and contented herself with the _Times_ and the scrap of old bonnet, while the Baron sailed slowly round the hill looking out for enemies, or made longer excursions, if all seemed safe, in search of food for his wife. And so far he had seen nothing to alarm him. A fisherman would come up the river now and again, and look up at him with interest as he rested to eat his lunch; but the Baron knew well that fishermen are too busy to be dangerous. Nor was there any other human being to be seen but a farmer on his rough-coated pony, or the parson striding over the hills to visit a distant parishioner.

But one morning in May—a lovely morning, too fresh and clear to last—as the Baron was gliding round and round far above the hill, his keen eye caught a slight movement among the rocky ridges on its summit. Poised on even wings, his tail deftly balancing him against the breeze, he watched: and soon he knew that he was being watched himself. For a human figure was there, lying on its back in a cleft of the grey rock, and looking up at him with a field-glass. For a long time they watched each other, motionless and in silence; but at last the human creature seemed to weary of it, and rose. A cry escaped the Baron—he could not help it; and from over the craggy side of the fortress came the answering cry of the Baroness as she sat on her treasures.

“Fool that I am,” thought the Baron, “I have betrayed her, and she has betrayed the nest.” One hope remained; the nest was in a stronger position than last year. On the top of the cliff towards the river no trees could grow; but some fifty feet below there was a mossy ledge on which three oaks had rooted themselves. Then came another ledge with more trees: then a steep space covered with large boulders: and then another cliff falling sheer into a deep pool of the river. In the middle oak on the highest ledge the nest had been placed; once on the ledge, a clever climber might mount the tree, but to get there was no easy matter, and a fall from the tree or ledge would be almost certain death.

The human creature began to move along the top of the fortress towards its rocky face above the river; he had heard the Baroness’s answering cry, and had attained his object. He knew now where the nest must be; and peeping over the edge, he soon made it out in the still almost leafless oak. He surveyed his ground carefully and then vanished for an hour or two; and the Baron, who had not yet told his wife, felt a faint gleam of hope, which increased as the rain began to sweep down the lonely valley, hiding the fortress in swirls of mist, while now and then a cold blast rushed up from below, shaking the oak to its very roots.

But late in the afternoon, wrapped in a macintosh, and carrying a bag, the minister of evil again appeared upon the hill-top; and now the Baron gave full vent to his anger and distress, calling loudly to his wife. She left the nest and joined him, wailing bitterly as she saw that ominous black figure standing but fifty feet above her treasures. Round and round they flew, anger and despair in their hearts.

Tom Lee had not been overtaken by his father’s telegram; it was he who stood there, half sorry for the Kites, but with a youngster’s love of climbing, and a keen desire to see the eggs. Now he fixed a short iron bar into the ground at the top of the cliff, and to this he fastened a stout rope. There would be just light enough to do the deed that day, and to-morrow he would travel home with the rent of one house and the spoil of another in his bag. Taking off his waterproof, and slinging on his shoulder a small basket full of cotton-wool, he seized the rope and let himself down it. As he hung in mid-air he thought he heard a call on the hill, and arriving safely on the ledge, he stood for a moment and listened. There it was again, not the Baron’s angry cry, nor yet the Baroness’s wail. But there was no time to lose, and with firm grasp of hand and foot he began to climb the oak. The boughs were sound and strong; all that was needed was a nimble frame and a steady head, and of both these Tom had been possessed from his earliest boyhood. In three minutes the eggs were within his reach, and in another they were within the basket, safely covered up in the cotton-wool. At this moment the call caught his ear again, and ere he descended he paused to listen once more, and began to fear that some other human being was on that lonely hill. The Baron and the Baroness, who had been flying about him, though not daring to attack so formidable a foe, flew further and further away with heart-piercing cries as Tom descended the tree safely, gripped his rope again, and swarmed up it to the cliff-top.

No sooner was he safe and sound on terra firma, than a figure emerged from the drizzling mist and advanced towards him. Tom’s heart quaked within him; was it the angry spirit of the mountains, or a constable come to carry out a new County Council order? But in another moment he saw that it was his father, wet through and with an excited glow in his eyes.

“Why, dad,” he said, “I thought you were the Old Man of the Mountain. Was it you that called? Well, I’m blest,—you’ll catch your death of cold!”

“I’ve been calling ever so long,” said his father, out of breath. “I couldn’t have found you but for the Kites. Didn’t you get my telegram?”

“Not I,” answered Tom; “we don’t get telegrams up to time in these parts. But here’s the rent all safe, dad.” And he opened the basket.

The father looked with eager eyes at those beautiful eggs, and handled one gently with the deepest professional admiration.

“Well,” he said, quietly, “now you’ve been down there once, you may as well go again. You just go and put ’em straight back, my lad.”

Tom stared at his father, and thought the old man had gone clean daft. At that moment the Kites returned, and came wheeling overhead with loud melancholy cries.

“I’ve no time to explain, Tom; it’s getting dark, and there’s not a moment to be lost. You do as I tell you, and put ’em straight back, all of them, as they were. We’ve got the rent.”

At these last words, Tom seized the rope again, and in a minute was once more on the ledge below. His father watched him from the top, pretty confident in his son’s powers of climbing. There was no need for anxiety: the good deed was done even quicker than the bad one; and Tom, puzzled but obedient, stood safe and sound once more by his father’s side.

As they went back to the little inn down the valley in the drizzling rain, the story of the cheque was told; and nothing remained but to make sure that the Kites returned to their nest. Armed with a field-glass they climbed next day another hill, and lying there on the top, they watched the fortress long and anxiously. When they left the inn that afternoon on their homeward journey, the old dealer’s heart was light. The Baron and the Baroness had not forsaken their treasures; and it may be that after all they will not be the last of their race.

Late that evening there arrived in London this telegram for the expectant collector from Stephen Lee:

“Your great kindness has saved two broods, mine and the Kites’.”

DOWNS AND DUNGEONS

Two small cages hung side by side just above the open door of a dingy house in a dingy London street. It was a street in the region of Soho, gloomy and forlorn; dirty bits of paper, fragments of old apples, treacherous pieces of orange-peel, lay sticking in its grimy mud, and a smutty drizzle was falling which could do no honest washing away of grime, but only make it stickier. It was not a cheerful place to live in, nor did the creatures living in it seem to rejoice in their life,—all except the Canary in one of the two cages, who sang a rattling, trilling, piercing song incessantly, with all the vigour of a London street-boy whistling in the dark mist of a November evening. Cats slunk about disconsolate; carmen sat on their vans and smoked resignedly, with old sacks on their shoulders; women slipped sadly with draggled feet into the public-house and out again for such comfort as they could get there; but that Canary sang away as if it were living in a Paradise. The street rang with the shrill voice, and a cobbler in the shop opposite shook his fist at the bird and used bad language.

At last the Canary suddenly stopped singing, dropped to the floor of its cage, pecked up a few seeds, and drank water; then flew up again to its perch, and addressed the occupant of the other cage, a little insignificant-looking brown Linnet.

“What ever is the matter with you? Here you’ve been two nights and a day, and you don’t say a word, nor sing a note! You don’t even eat,—and of course you can’t sing if you can’t eat.”

The Linnet opened its bill as if to speak, and shut it again with a gasp as of a dying bird.

“Come now,” said the Canary, not unkindly, but with a certain comfortable Cockney patronising way, “you _must_ eat and drink. We all eat and drink here, and get fat and happy, and then we sing—Listen!” And from the neighbouring tavern there came a chorus of coarse voices.

“This is a jolly street,” the Canary went on. “I was brought up in a dealer’s shop in the East End, in very low society, in a gas-lit garret among dirty children. Here we can be out of doors in summer, and see a bit of blue overhead now and then; and in the winter I am warm inside, with plenty of seed and water, two perches in my cage, and both of them all to myself. It’s a life of real luxury, and makes one sing. I could go on at it all day, trying to convince those miserable black Sparrows that they do not know what happiness means. But really it chills one’s spirits a little to have another bird close by one who mopes and won’t sing. Perhaps you can’t? I have heard the dealer say that there are birds that can’t: but I didn’t believe it. One can’t help one’s self,—out it comes like a hemp-seed out of its shell.”

The Canary rattled off again for full five minutes, and then said abruptly,

“Do you really mean you can’t sing at all?”

“I used to sing on the Downs,” said the Linnet at last, “but not like that.”

“No, no,” said the Canary; “that’s not to be expected from such as you—one must have advantages, of course, to sing well. A natural gift, to begin with; and that only comes when you are well born. You see I come of a good stock of singers. My father sang at the Crystal Palace Show, and won a prize. I have heard the dealer say that we have a pedigree going up for generations, and of course we improve as we go on, because each of us gets the benefit of the education of all our ancestors. Just let me show you what birth and education can do.” And he set off once more with such terrific energy that the cobbler over the way seized an unfinished boot, and looked as if he meant to hurl it at the cage.

Fortunately the Canary ceased at that moment, and turned again to the Linnet.

“You said you used to sing on the Downs. Pray, what are the Downs, and why can’t you sing here? With plenty to eat and nothing to do and a whole street of men and women to sing to, what more can you want? I fear you have a selfish and discontented disposition,—want of education, no doubt. But we must make allowance for every one, as Griggs the dealer used to say when he got in new birds that couldn’t sing properly.”

“I don’t know why I can’t sing here,” the Linnet answered, rousing itself a little, “but I can’t. You see we used to sing on the Downs as we flew about in the sun and the breeze and the sweet-scented air; and here I am shut up in foul air, with my wings tingling all day, and the song sticks in my throat. There was a little brook where we lived, that came out of the hill-side and sang gently all day and night as it ran down among the daisies and the gorse. We couldn’t have gone on singing if it had had to stop running. We drank of it, and bathed in it, and listened to it; and then we danced away over the hills, singing, or perched on a gorse-spray, singing. And we knew what our singing meant; but I don’t know what yours means. It’s just a little like the song of the Tree-pipit who lived at the foot of the Downs, but it’s far louder.”

“Naturally,” said the Canary. “I have no acquaintance with Tree-pipits, but I presume they have not birth and education. But go on about the Downs; perhaps if you were to talk about them you might find your voice. I should like to hear you sing; I might give you some hints; and if we are to be neighbours, I should wish you to acquit yourself properly here—you really are not fit to be seen in such a street as this, but if you could sing our people might think better of you. Now go on, and when I want to sing I’ll tell you to stop for a bit.”

This was really very kind and condescending of the high-born Canary, and so the Linnet felt it: and sitting a little more upright on his perch, he began. “I was born on those Downs nearly three years ago. The first thing I can remember is the lining of our nest, which was so soft that I have never felt anything like it since, except the thistledown from which we used to get the seed when we were on our rambles in the autumn. And the next thing I recollect is the prickles of the gorse-bush in which our nest was hidden, and the splendid yellow bloom, and the strong sweet scent it gave to the air. We were always being fed by our parents, but I needn’t trouble you with that.”

“No,” said the Canary, “but I’m glad you were fed well, all the same: it’s the main thing for song and satisfaction. Well, go on; this is all dreadfully provincial, but one must make allowance, as the dealer said.”

“When we grew big enough we all five got up to the edge of the nest one by one, and our mother teased us to come out through the green prickles the same way that she came in and out to feed us. One by one we fluttered out, and perched on a bare hawthorn twig close by. Never shall I forget that moment! The world was all open to us,—a world of rolling green Downs, flecked here and there with yellow gorse like that of our home, and ending in a sparkling blue that I afterwards found was the sea. Skylarks were singing overhead: a Stonechat was perched on a gorse-twig close by, balancing himself in the breeze,—a fine bird, with black head and russet breast. Swallows darted about catching the flies that haunted the gorse-bloom; and our own people, the Linnets, were dancing about in the air and twittering their song, or sitting bolt upright on the gorse over their nests, singing a few sweet notes as the fancy took them. We could tell them from all the others by the way they perched, and we tried to do it ourselves. I would show you myself how a Linnet perches when it’s free, but I hardly have the strength, and I might knock my head against these wires.”

“Don’t trouble about it,” said the Canary; “it’s no doubt a vulgar pastime, which would not be appreciated in educated society. Go on; I’m not much bored yet—anything will do that will make you sing.”

“I’ll get on,” said the Linnet; “but I have never felt such pain as in telling you of those happy times. We grew up, and in the later summer we joined a great gathering of our people from other Downs, and went down to the sea-side. There were thousands of us together, and yet there was always food for us. Thistles, charlock, all sorts of tall plants grew there, on which we perched and hung, and pecked the delicious seeds. We could all twitter by that time, though we did not know how to sing properly; and the noise we made as we all rose together from a meal in the fresh sea air made all our hearts cheerful. And here, moving along the coast, and always finding food, we passed the winter. In the bitterest cold the seeds were always there; and at night we crept into hollows under shelter of the cliffs and slept soundly. Very few of us died, and those were nearly all old birds who were not strong enough to bear the force of the fierce winds that now and then swept along the coast and hurled the spray into the hollows where we roosted.”

“Ah,” said the Canary, “think what a privilege it is to be safe here in your own house, with food and water given you gratis, no rough winds, and a warm room in winter, that makes you sing, sing!” And off he went into one of his gay, meaningless songs, and the cobbler looked fierce and red in the face (he had been to the public-house while the Linnet was talking), and laid his hand again upon a hob-nailed boot. But the Canary again stopped in time, and when the din ceased, the Linnet went on.

“When the days grew longer, and the sun gained strength, we broke up our great company. New thoughts and hopes broke in upon our hearts,—hopes that for me were never to be realised,—and a new beauty seemed to come upon all of us. My forehead and breast took a crimson hue, and my back became a beautiful chestnut; I know I was a handsome bird, for one little darling told me so, and said she would unite her lot with mine. With her I left the sea, and followed the Downs inland till we came to the place where I was born; and there, in a gorse-bush near our old home, we decided to build our nest. Do you know how to build a nest?”

“No,” said the Canary. “We have those things done for us if we want them, while we sit and sing, in polite society. I can’t imagine how you could stoop to do such work yourself, as you seem to have the making of good breeding in you. But we must make allowance!”

“Well, we did it,” the Linnet continued, “and I never enjoyed anything so much. My darling and I had a great stir in our hearts, you see, and we could not stop to think whether it was genteel or not. There was stir and force and great love in our hearts, which taught us how to do it, and carried us through the work. And then the eggs were laid,—six of them; I knew them all from each other, and every one of the spots on each of them. While she sat on them, steadily, faithfully, wearing away her best feathers with the duty, I danced in the air, and brought her food, and sang my love to her from the twigs of the gorse; for I loved her, how I loved her! My heart went out to her in song, and she knew every note I sang.”

“Then sing now,” said the Canary. “Show me how you did it, and we shall get on better.”

“I can’t, I can’t,” said the Linnet, “and I am going to tell you why. One day I was looking for food for my sitting mate, when I saw another cock Linnet on the ground, hopping about and picking up seed. How the seed came to be there I did not stay to ask, nor notice anything unusual about the manner of the bird; it was high time that my wife should be fed. The traitor called me to share the seed; it was our well-known call, and I answered it as I flew down. For a moment I noticed nothing, and was about to fly off when I saw that that bird had a string round his leg, which came from behind a little thorn-bush in front of the hedge close by. I started, suspicious, and at that same moment down came on the top of me a heavy net, half stunning me, and a man came from behind the bush and seized me. I struggled, but it was no use. With a grimy hand he held me fast and put me into a cage like this, and in a cage I have existed ever since, without hope or liberty or the power to sing as I used to.”

“What became of your mate and the eggs?” asked the Canary, interested for the first time in his life in some one besides himself.