W. Warde Fowler

“ The Sandpipers felt no fear, for there was no village at hand, and hardly a boy to hunt for nests: the fishermen kept to the bank of the river or waded in it, and only glanced for a moment in admiration at the graceful figure of the male bird, as he stood bowing on a stone in mid-stream, gently moving body and tail up and down in rhythmical greeting to the water that swirled around him, and piping his musical message to the wife sitting on her eggs near at hand. ”

“ The Ornithologist had avoided the main route, and was ascending the South Downs at a point little known to Londoners. Near the top the hollow road began to be fringed by the burning yellow of the gorse-bloom; the air grew lighter, and the scent of clean, sweet herbage put new life into man and bird. The Linnet fluttered in his cage with wild uncertain hopes; but that determined Ornithologist went on wheeling his machine up the hill. ”

“ After each of these stories the little bird shuddered and crouched under his mother’s wing again: but the mastering desire to see the world always came back upon him, and great was the relief of the parents when the other eggs were hatched and education could begin. Then the nest was soon abandoned, and the little creatures trotted about with their mother; for they are not like the ugly nestlings that lie helpless and featherless in their nests for days and days, as human babies lie in their cradles for months. ”

“ I think she thought more of the useful fruits of the garden—of the currants and gooseberries of which good store of jam should be made in the summer, of the vegetables they would grow for themselves, and the strawberries they would invite their London friends to come and share.
Next morning quite early the Poet threw his window wide open and looked out into his garden. It was not a trim and commonplace garden; it was an acre of good ground that had grown by degrees into a garden, as in the course of ages of village life one owner after another had turned it to his own purposes. ”

“ Skylarks were singing overhead: a Stonechat was perched on a gorse-twig close by, 111 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But the wind seemed lighter, and there were the Sandmartins, who had their nests in the cliff, flitting up and down just over the water as if nothing had happened, and there too was the friendly Grey Wagtail, with his long tail going up and down just the same as ever. Feeling that he might safely see more still, that adventurous young bird trotted round the corner of the ledge.
In a twinkling the wind had carried him off 72 his feet, and he was flying—really flying for the first time in his life. He needed no teaching in the art—whether he would or no, fly he must. ”

“ All that livelong day, a day no one of them ever forgot, they spent by the river side, dabbling their little dark-green legs in the water when an eddy sent it gently up to them, learning to find the sweetest and wholesomest insects lurking 59 among the pebbles, with now and then a little worm, or caterpillar that had fallen from the bushes above: watching the trout turning up their golden sides in the dark water of the pool as they rose to the flies: practising their voices in a feeble piping, and always moving bodies and tails as they saw their parents do it. ”

“ 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. ”

“ To disobey the parson would have been for Bill a sheer impossibility, though easy enough for other lads. For him the old parson had been in the place of a father ever since he lost his own; and at home, in school, in church, or in the village, he often saw the old man many times a day. Not that he exactly loved him—or at least he was not aware of it; he had more than once tasted of the big stick, and oftener deserved it. But in Bill there was a feeling for constituted authority, which centred itself in those black gaiters and in that bent form with the grey hair ”

“ When one is worried the best thing is to be as busy as possible. So I had better say goodbye and get to work again.” And he fluttered off his perch.
“No, don’t go,” said Gwenny. “Tell me all about it; I’m sure it’ll do you good. I always go and tell some one when I get into trouble.”
So the Martin began, while Gwenny arranged herself comfortably as for a story, while the breeze blew the brown locks all about her face.
“The wonder is,” he said, “that I am here at all. Every year it seems more astonishing, for half the Martins that nested in the village in my first summer are dead and gone. ”

“ 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. ”

“ At last the light began to fade, the young ones were tired and sleepy—even the eldest, who had distinguished himself by trying to fly, and actually getting out on a stone half a foot from the shore, where he stood bowing with great pride till his father came and shoved him into the water to scramble ashore in a fright—and so this delightful day came to an end, and they all went back to the shelter where the nest was placed. ”

“ And here they were again, this last June, safely returned from all the perils of travel, and glorying in a nestful of four large and beautiful eggs of cream colour spotted with reddish-brown blotches. The nest was out of reach even of the highest flood, but within hearing of the river’s pleasant chat: for without that in their ears the old birds could not have done their work, nor the young ones have learnt the art of living. ”

“ There came into his mind the name he used to give to the moors above his Yorkshire dale in his young days when his mother read the Pilgrim’s Progress to her children—the Delectable Mountains.
He was suddenly recalled to his garden by a low melodious pipe, as of a bird practising its voice for better use in warmer days; it came from one of the rowans. Sometimes the notes were almost whispered; sometimes they rose for 208 an instant into a full and mellow sweetness, and then died away again. They were never continuous—only fragments of song ”

“ The next morning broke fresh and fine, and the Poet threw open his window long before any one in the house was stirring. His mind was filled with comfortable thoughts of home after the discomforts of foreign travel; how delicious was a garden in August—one’s own garden, with one’s own birds and flowers and trees!
Ah, hapless Poet! Do not look at your beloved rowans; there is a sight there that will not please you!
Three blackbirds, a missel-thrush, and half-a-dozen starlings, were hard at work snipping off the berries, and gaps in the golden bunches already told the tale of what was to happen ”

“ Two days later the Ornithologist was wheeling swiftly southwards, with a little cage fixed to the saddle in front of him. The motion was not unpleasant to Lintie when once they were free of streets and crowds, and out of suburbs, even to the last new house of dreary Croydon. He was in a cage still; but birds, even more than other animals, have a subtle inward sense of sympathy that tells them surely in whose hands they are. Lintie was in the strong hands of one who loves all birds, and whose happiness is bound up in theirs. ”

“ The father crouched down among the pebbles, and the mother bade the eldest chick mount upon his back, and stick his three long toes, whose claws were already beginning to get strong, fast into the soft and yielding plumage. This he did in a moment, and the next one found him shooting across the narrow head of the pool, with its rush of tumbled water, and landed safely at the foot of the rock. It was a delightful sensation, and as the father opened his wings and sped back again to fetch the others, the little one opened his too, and felt almost as if he could do it by himself. ”

“ 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!” ”

“ The water was surging and roaring against his boulder: was it going to rise upon him and carry him away helpless? The wind was so strong that to fly up stream was hopeless, and as he sat there exhausted, he felt that he could not even use his wings to get to shore. Uttering from time to time a plaintive “wheet,” he clung to the stone with all his might, balancing himself with body and tail against the gusts: not reflecting, nor despairing, but just wondering what would happen. ”

“ So the birds built where and when they pleased, and brought up crowds of hungry young ones; the old gardener kept his word and his place. They throve upon a juicy diet of grubs and caterpillars, and the garden throve in getting rid of these; so that by May it was such an Eden as even the Poet’s fancy had never dreamed of. His ear was daily soothed with a 217 chorus of mellow song: he began to make a list of all the birds that visited his garden, to take notes of the food they seemed to love, and to record the dates of their nest-building, egg-laying, and hatching. ”

“ Promise me to sit close; if any creature comes along, don’t you stir—it is the whole secret. They won’t find you on the eggs, if you only sit close; and think how hard it is to get back again without being seen when once you’re off the nest! There’s nothing to alarm you in what we saw. See, here we are at the nest, and how far it is from the big road, and how snugly hidden! ”

“ This was how Selina came by her Starling, and with the natural instinct she possessed of attracting all living creatures to her, she very soon made a friend of it. It was young enough to feel no shyness for the quiet little old woman: it was hardly out of its nursery, and had only just begun to learn to scramble up to the top of the chimney from the ledge on which the nest was placed, when it took a sudden panic, failed to reach the top, and came scrambling down into a new world.
For some time she kept Elimelech in his cage, but gradually she accustomed him to shift for himself. ”

“ Selina would say to her visitors, of whom she now had plenty; “he loves me, but he loves Fan better.” If we could have penetrated into Elimelech’s mind, I do not think we should have found that this was exactly so. I believe that he loved Selina as well as we all did—I believe that he looked upon her, as Mr. Dick looked upon Aunt Betsey, as the most wonderful woman in the world. But I think that Fan’s back was a more comfortable perch than Selina’s shoulder, and the hovel more suited to his turn of mind than her kitchen—and that was all. ”

“ The next day was a Sunday, and they spent half the morning in great happiness without seeing a single fisherman. But after all they were to learn this day that life has its troubles: for a huge heron took it into his head to fish while human beings could not, and alighted at the water’s edge within a dozen yards of the spot where they were already motionless in obedience to their mother’s signal pipe. ”

“ But in spite of her tea and her book and her beloved solitude, Miss Gwenny was not at this moment in quite such a happy frame of mind as to deserve to have her garden turning into fairyland. Several things had happened to vex her; and when one is vexed it is too much to expect White Rabbits or Cheshire Cats or Mock Turtles or March Hares to wait upon one at pleasure and tell their tales. ”

“ Caged we all are, and expected to sing, and to forget the Downs and the gorse and the brook and the fresh air! But we don’t and we can’t,—it is the little life left within us, to hope against hope for the Downs again. ”

“ But the member of the household dearest to Selina’s heart was an old pony that lived in a little tumble-down hovel adjoining the cottage. Fan was perfectly well known to all the village, for she was always being taken out to graze on odd bits of grass which were the property of no one in particular, where, if kindly accosted, and in a good humour, she would give you her off fore foot to shake. ”

“ Fowler has produced a charming book, which none are too old and few too young to appreciate. He possesses the rare art of telling a story simply and unaffectedly; he is pathetic without laborious effort; he excels in suggesting the effect which he desires to produce. A quiet vein of humour runs through many of the stories, and many shrewd strokes of kindly satire are given under the guise of his pleasant fables.... Apart from the interest of the stories themselves, the pages are brimful of minute observation of the ways and habits of bird life. ”