Part 10

One well-known song was missing from the tall elm by the brook-side; and Flip, in spite of his excitement in singing, and his hopes that his courtship might be successful with a certain little brown member of a last year’s brood, could not help thinking now and then, with a heavy heart, of Pipi the best of singers, and of all the happiness they might have had but for that unlucky lighthouse. Twinkle too would sometimes remind him of his sorrow in

his blunt and selfish way, and Flip felt his company still so unpleasant that he moved to a tree further up the brook.

One day, not long after the arrival of the hens, when Flip had made sure of his little spouse, and they were flying after one another from tree to tree round the field, then into another field and another, in loving chase, Flip caught a low song that made him stop instantly and perch. It sounded again from a low willow, and then Flip could see the singer moving about inside the tree, where the leaves were just beginning to appear. In another moment a willow-warbler fluttered out; its flight was feeble, and as it perched again, Flip could see that it held on with some difficulty to the twig, for its right leg was injured. But it was Pipi!

Yes, it was Pipi beyond all doubt; and Flip, glued to his bough by amazement, gave out such a strain of song as he had never in his whole life before been able to produce. Pipi looked up and saw Flip; in an instant they were together, and in such a state of tremor and delight, that poor Mrs. Flip was left quite out in the cold, and became for the first time in her life jealous of a cock bird.

“Never mind me,” said Pipi at last; “look at me, Mrs. Flip, a poor wreck, with a bruised bill, and a game leg, and only half a song: who could be jealous of me? Leave off fluttering round poor Flip, and let me tell him my story, and then you shall have him all to yourself.”

So Mrs. Flip perched quietly on a bough hard by, for she was a sensible bird, or she would not have married Flip; and she had so often heard him talk of Pipi that she felt he must want sadly to hear the story.

Then Pipi told how he had suddenly come upon the light, and then lost all his senses as suddenly; how, when he came to himself, he was in a horrible cage, with nothing fit to eat, even if he could have eaten it; how the Professor had taken him in his hand and stroked him softly, and then had bound up his leg without hurting him a bit; how he had told Peter’s wife to keep Pipi warm, and to get some insects off the trees for him if he got any better. And then how he felt the warmth slowly reviving the life within him, and how he began to flutter a little about the room, and was very nearly caught by the cat, and then put into the cage out of her reach; how Peter brought a great piece of willow-bough, as the Professor had told him, on which Pipi had contrived to find a few insects; and how, as strength returned, a great desire grew within him to get away to the meadow and the brook, and he fluttered so much that his feathers began to fall out, and he could take no more food. And lastly, how Peter’s good wife had taken the cage into the garden and opened the door, and how he had made his way, slowly and wearily, to the old summer home.

“And now you know all about it,” he said, and sang one strain with something like the old force. “Let us go and find old Blossom,” said he, “and see if his _tale_ is equal to mine. And Twinkle too--poor grumpy Twinkle; I shall never be able to hold up my head before him any more, and he will be more unpleasant than ever. But after all,” he went on after a moment, “Twinkle was my only companion that dreadful night, and he is not such a bad bird after all, and is sure to be glad to see me. And let me tell you,” he added, in a serious voice, “that I intend to visit that kind lighthouse-woman again, and the Professor too, if I can find him; for I have found out one thing in the lighthouse, and that is, that though men are often cruel to us birds, they are not all so; and though they must, most of them, know very little about us, there are a few at least who understand our ways.”

Pipi soon regained his strength, his song, and his spirits; he found a wife, and when his young ones were old enough to understand, he told them many stories of his wonderful adventures. And he did not forget to go and see Peter and his wife in the autumn, when the birds were on their way once more to the south. He came into the garden, and from the stunted currant-tree on the wall he looked into the kitchen, and uttered a little low note of greeting. The woman looked up from her washing, saw Pipi, and uttered a cry of delight. “Peter!” she called, “it is the sick bird! Come quick and see!” But Pipi could not stay for Peter, and the cage, still standing on the dresser, made him even now feel a little uncomfortable. His voice, like that of all his comrades, had been almost silent for several weeks; but as a gleam of autumn sunshine shot into the garden, and lit up the hardy little double daisies that still contrived to bloom in that bleak spot, he called up all his strength, and uttered a single strain, the faint echo of his old spring song, before he flew away. It went straight to the good woman’s heart, and she never forgot it.

“Peter,” she said, as the lighthouse-man came into the kitchen, “don’t forget to tell the Professor gentleman that the little bird came back to thank him and us. And, Peter, don’t you ever go for to keep any more birds in cages, when you can have ’em sing to you out o’ doors; for the blessed creatures are worth better than that, and there’s human beings as might take a lesson from ’em.” And those kind eyes of hers were moist as she went on with her washing.

THE OWLS’ REVENGE.

(A TALE OF BIRDS AND MEN.)

I.

In May all woods are beautiful; but of all the woods I know, there is none on which the month of bluebells so freely lavishes her delights, as on the ancient and unkempt wood of Truerne. The blue carpet spread in every clearing, the gray-green oak-stems rising softly out of the blue, the fleecy clouds of spring, seen gently moving eastwards through the ruddy young leaves overhead, can never be forgotten by any one who has rambled here for a whole May-morning. No trim park-paling shuts in Truerne wood; its outskirts are set about, in these sweet spring days, with an untidy maze of “whitening hedges and uncrumpling fern,” with stretches of gorse and trailing bramble, with dense thickets of blackthorn where the nightingale builds his nest and sings unheeded. It is all this wild setting of the woodland, as well as the freedom of the wood itself, that makes it so dear to such of its human neighbours as love quiet and solitude, as well as to the birds and beasts that find home and happiness in its shelter.

Of the few human beings who haunted it a few years ago, old Oliver the woodman was the only one to whom it had wholly yielded up its secrets; and when one day he was found under his favourite old oak-tree, wrapped in a slumber from which there was no awakening, we felt that the good genius of the wood had vanished, leaving no successor. But on the morning of that 16th day of May on which my story begins and ends, old Oliver was still vigorous, and had risen at daybreak in order to finish his work early. He meant to set forward about midday for the neighbouring town on the hill; for it was fairday, or “club” as we call it in these parts, at Northstow, and he wished once more to buy a fairing for the rheumatic old wife sitting by the chimney-corner at home.

He is sitting, and eating his dinner, at the foot of his favourite oak, which is separated by a few yards of bluebells and undergrowth from one of the grassy rides, or “lights” (as we call them) which intersect the wood, and let sunshine and fresh air into its tangled depths. It is his favourite tree, partly because its gray-lichened stem divides on one side, as it nears the ground, into two big root-branches which leave a comfortable space between them--a mossy arm-chair of which he only knows the comfort who has toiled since daybreak without ceasing; and partly because the tree is old, as old as the abbey of Truerne which once stood under the shadow of the wood in the meadows below; and because it is hollow enough to be the home of a family of brown owls, whose ancestors had been tenants of the wood long before the monks became its owners. These owls were some of Oliver’s best friends; he seldom saw them, nor they him; but, boy and man, he had known them for more than half a century, and knew them well to be discreet and quiet creatures, who did no harm and gave no trouble to any one but vermin. There was

a silent, mysterious sageness about their ways, which suited well with the old man’s humour.

As he sat there eating and resting, the silence of the wood was broken by the sudden squeak of a pig; and half turning his face in the direction of the ride, Oliver saw an uplifted sapling descend on the back of the squeaker, who raised his piteous voice again, and rushed onwards down the path with his companions. They were followed by the owner of the sapling, a tall man in a long greasy coat of a yellowish colour; his face was fat and ruddy, and out of it there looked two small cunning eyes, which followed the movements of his pigs to right and left with merciless swiftness. It was the kind of face which men seem to acquire who spend their lives in driving pigs and driving bargains, and who are ever bullying animals and browbeating their fellow-men. Close at his heels was another smaller man, a little wizened, discontented farmer, whom Mr. Pogson, with his natural imperativeness, had pressed into his service in driving his pigs to Northstow fair. An umbrella, as decrepit as the farmer himself, was the weapon he used, without much energy, when a pig chanced to stray in his direction.

Oliver kept very quiet as they passed: he did not like Pogson, and had no respect for Weekes the little farmer. At last they had disappeared down the ride, and after sitting a while longer, listening to the sibilant notes of the wood-wren overhead, and watching the squirrels and the nuthatches who were fellow-owners of the tree opposite to him, he rose with something of a sigh,--for he was unwilling to exchange the quiet wood for the noise and worry of the fair,--and stepped into the bridle-path to set out on his walk.

“Are ye ganging to the fair, Oliver, ye lonesome auld dog?” said a grave but friendly voice in a Scotch accent. It was the voice of Mr. McNab the keeper, who without his gun, and in his best velveteen, was on his way to look out for a spaniel-puppy or two to fill vacant places.

“Ay,” said Oliver simply, and they walked on side by side; Mr. McNab’s serious gray eyes glancing here and there through the wood, and Oliver’s earnest and rather wistful gaze kept steadily on the bluebells at his feet, as was his wont when walking. Neither of them was a man of many words or many friends; nor had they spoken to each other half a dozen times a year since the Scotchman came into the neighbourhood. Yet each of them felt, as they went along, that he had a reasonable man beside him.

II.

It was high tide at Northstow fair: the broad, sloping street was crowded with pens of sheep and pigs, and resounded with the noises of oppressed animals, with the loud voices of their tyrants, and with the hideous braying of the organs which of late years have added new attractions to the merry-go-rounds. Old Oliver, soon wearied of the crowd and the hubbub, had bought his wife’s new shawl early, and was about to turn his steps homewards, when it occurred to him that it would be as well, if circumstances were favourable, to get a comfortable shave before leaving.

The Northstow barber had a double shop, one window of which was decorated with his own wigs and perfumery, while the other showed caps and bonnets, and was the domain of the milliner, his wife. As Oliver passed this latter window, and was about to step into the shop, his eye caught the well-known form of an owl--a young one, perched in an uneasy attitude on a lady’s hat. He stopped to look at it, and then discovered a placard, conspicuously placed just underneath the hat, and bearing the following inscription:

Wanted at once, by a London firm, ONE THOUSAND OWLS![7]

The old fellow stood rooted to the pavement, spelling out this placard again and again. What could it mean? and what the owlet on the lady’s hat? As he lingered, two men came up behind him, and there jarred suddenly on his senses the bud coarse voice of Mr. Pogson, already a little thickened by frequent glasses of ale and brandy. “Wanted, one thousand howls!” spelt out Mr. Pogson, slowly. “How much a-piece, now? There be scores on ’em in Truerne, be’nt there, Oliver, eh?”

“Ay, there be brown uns in the wood, and white uns in my barn, and in Highfield church tower,” said the feeble voice of Mr. Weekes the farmer.

At this moment the barber, relieved for a moment from his duties, came out on his doorstep to enjoy the cheering sights and sounds of the fair.

“Good day, Mr. Pogson,” he said. “How’s the pigs? Coming in for a shave? Low prices in pigs to-day, so I hear tell. Ah, you’re looking at the notice? My wife brought it down from town yesterday. There’s a chance for making money now!”

“What do they want ’em for?” said Mr. Weekes.

“What do they give for ’em, you mean,” said Mr. Pogson with some contempt.

“What do they want ’em for?” answered the barber, shirking Mr. Pogson’s question. “Why you haven’t got any pretty daughters, Mr. Weekes, or you’d know that by this time. Look at that there owl on the bonnet! Why, bless you, ’tis all birds now with the ladies in London--and in the country too for the matter o’ that. Birds on their hats, and birds on their dresses; and a very pretty taste too, in my opinion. What’s prettier, now, than birds? Think of their songs, Mr. Pogson, and all their pretty ways! Why when you sees ’em a fluttering about on the ladies’ hats in town, you could a’most believe as you was out in the country seeing the little creeters a-flying round you and singing! And now it’s all owls, I take it. Such softness o’ feathers, you see, such wings, such----”

“But what’ll they pay for ’em?” asked Pogson impatiently, tired of the barber’s talk.

“Fancy prices, sir, fancy prices,” said the barber; “why there’s a fortun’ in that placard! There’s birds o’ paradise selling in town--so my wife tells me--for fifty guineas a-piece, and there’s kingfishers and woodpeckers fetching a mint o’ money. I tell you even blackbirds and such like brings in something, for they dodges ’em up with other birds’ wings, or dyes ’em red and green, as pretty as can be. And now here’s a run on owls, you see; can’t get enough of ’em. Half-a-sovereign a-piece for the best ones, I think it was she told me. If pigs is down, Mr. Pogson, why owls is up, you see. Want a shave then? Come along, gentlemen, I’m free.”

“There be scores on ’em in Truerne wood,” said the pigdealer again to Weekes, as he preceded him into the shop; but catching sight of Oliver, who had shrunk away from the pair, and stood at a little distance riveted by the barber’s speech, Mr. Pogson added, “There’s that old tree by the ride: Oliver’s armchair, the Highfield folks calls it; there’s owls there now, and young ’uns as well, I’ll be bound. Ain’t there now, old soft-head?” And he made a playful cut at Oliver with his sapling as he went up the steps.

The old man was seriously alarmed. That these two men would be ready to meddle in the wood for the sake of a few guineas, or even a few shillings, if they had the chance, he knew very well; and the fact of the placard being there on fair-day was quite enough to set all the gun-owners in the neighbourhood owl-hunting. As he turned away from the window, he caught sight of the tall form of Mr. McNab sauntering through the fair, and regarding its various follies much as a grown-up man looks at the frolic of a pack of children just let out of school. He went after him quickly, and touched him on the arm.

“Mr. McNab! Mr. McNab!” said he, with earnest and imploring eyes, “there’s mischief up there; there’s mischief in the barber’s shop. There’s a placard out for a thousand owls, and they’re going to shoot ‘em in Truerne wood!”

“They might do waur,” said the keeper, not at all taken aback.

“‘Tis hard as Lunnon folk can’t leave us alone,” continued Oliver with a rueful face. “They’ll cut the wood down next and burn it for charcoal; I’ve heard talk on it afore now. But I’ll be in my grave before then, if so be as my prayers be granted.”

“They winna do that,” said the keeper; “dinna fash your auld head with sic notions. And we maunna hae the owls killed oot either, or we’ll be owerrun with rats in a year or twa. When the cat’s awa--ye ken. But what for is a’ this about owls, I wonder? Are they gaun clean doited in Lunnon then?”

And leaving Oliver, Mr. McNab walked up to the barber’s shop, and after looking at the milliner’s window, he went in, and did not come out again while Oliver remained within sight.

The old fellow waited a while, and walked about the fair; but he saw no more of McNab, and had to turn his face homewards without a word of reassurance. As he passed through the narrow passage, thronged with hard-faced men and boys, which divided the pens of crowded pigs and sheep, it made him wince a little to see Mr. Pogson, his ruddy face still ruddier, and his sunken little eyes sparkling with drink and with unwonted expectations of wealth, cutting at the hind-quarters of his newly-bought pigs with the sapling, shouting in a hard voice to greasy friends, and looking at every one who came near him as if they had better mind what they were about. For old Oliver he had a profound contempt; and as the old man passed him, he caught the pig that was nearest him at the moment such a cut with his switch, that its squeaks resounded through the street; it tried to escape over the backs of its fellows, who all with a loud chorus of squeaking rushed to the further side of the pen. Which so pleased Mr. Pogson that he turned to the old man with a wink, as if to say, “Now you see the proper way to treat animals.” But Oliver had passed on quickly.

III.

Old Oliver trudged down the road from the little town on the hill, with his fairing under his arm, thinking of his old wife sitting in her chimney-corner, and of the old days when he bought the pretty young farm-servant her first fairing, in that same town and on that very same day in May, some five-and-forty years ago. Straight before him were the Cotswold hills, and on their slope he could see the spire of Highfield church, and further down and nearer was the great dark mass of Truerne wood, hiding the hamlet where he had lived all his life. The sight of the wood made him think of the owls, and he unconsciously quickened his pace, as if to make haste and see that all was right with them as yet.

Down the long sloping road he went, and then turning off by a bridle-path, passed through another wood--not his, and therefore no place for dallying in--and crossing the river by an old flood-beaten bridge, took his way through a wealth of buttercups that gilded his old boots with yellow dust, to the further side of the water-meadows, where his own beloved wood came down in gentle slopes to the valley. Evening was coming on and the light was subdued; all was quiet and peaceful unless a nightingale broke out suddenly in song from a thicket, or the voice of the chiff-chaff rang out from overhead. Over the bluebells the shadows were lengthening, and against their deep blue, as it mingled in the distance with the blue of the sky peeping through the branches, rose the straight and darkening stem of many an ancient tree. What a change from the noise and worry and ill-dealing and cruelty of the fair!

When he came to his own old oak he paused and listened; but no sound was heard but the song of the wood-wren in the higher foliage.

“‘Tis all right as yet,” he said to himself; “they’re not astir so early as this; but maybe they’ll be hooting when Pogson and the pigs come along later, and then they’re marked birds; the warrant ’ll be out against ’em. The Lord deliver them out of the hand of the Philistines,” said the old fellow, quite aloud. “I’ll get a bit of supper, and come and have a look presently”; and he went on up the ride.

Close behind him was the gamekeeper. Mr. McNab, finding that there were no spaniel-puppies at the fair, had no further reason to stay there; for he had a poor opinion of the people of those parts, and did not care to listen to their stupid talk, or to help them to drink bad beer. Moreover during his visit to the barber he had satisfied himself that his domains were really in danger of being invaded by unsportsmanlike clod-hoppers in search of owls; and the more he thought of it, the more impossible it seemed to have fellows like Pogson roaming about in his woods with firearms. It was bad enough to have pigs driven through your wood every fair-day, though that could not be helped where there was a right of way for man and beast; but he had reason to suspect Mr. Pogson of other still more objectionable practices, and at all times disliked the man as a noisy, bullying lout.

So he had left the fair soon after Oliver, only stopping at a shop in the outskirts of the town to buy a good-sized twist of strong cord. He did not stay to look at the view, or to sit on the bridge and watch the water, or to admire the bluebells when he came to Truerne wood. Mr. McNab was a man of a practical mind, and a swift walker; and he had nearly caught up Oliver when he arrived at the old oak-tree, so that he just heard the old fellow’s ejaculation about the Philistines, and then saw his smockfrock retreating up the ride. The Scotchman stopped and watched it disappear.

“Yon auld Oliver has mair gude sense,” he said to himself, “than a’ these blathering gowks o’ pigdrivers; and he kens his Bible too! A wee bit too saft--mair backbane, mair backbone! But he’s no sae doited as the rest!”

The sun was almost setting, but the owls in the old oak were still silent. “They’ll be hooting in an hour or twa,” he said, as Oliver had said it before him; and drawing the twist of cord from his pocket, he stepped aside among the bluebells to the oak-tree. Plenty of young ground ashes were shooting up among the flowers, and with the help of these, and of a low hazel bush or two, he contrived to fasten the cord in a pretty tight circle round the tree-trunk, at a distance of some half-dozen yards from it, and about a foot and a half from the ground. There being still plenty of cord, he looked about for a log of wood, and finding one not too heavy, he tied the cord round it, and hoisted it up on a low branch of the big tree, on the side nearest the ride, just balancing it at the junction of one gnarled bough with another, so that a strong pull at the string would easily bring it down. This done, he fastened the other end tightly down to his circle below, and then paused, with a face of extreme gravity, to contemplate his apparatus.

Suddenly his severe features relaxed. There had shot across his memory a certain scene, when as a bare-legged callant playing on his native braes, he had devised just such a booby-trap to catch another boy, with a view of securing for himself a certain nest in which eggs were about to be laid. The grim features of Mr. McNab relaxed, I say, and in his solitude in the wood he burst out into a hearty ringing laugh.

“At bairn’s wark in my auld age! And what wad the Dominie say? Wad I be for a crack wi’ the tawse, or the knuckle-end of the auld crab-stick at hame, eh!”