Part 19

It was a willow-warbler; olive-brown on head, back, and tail, but with just a tinge of yellow too; whitish-gray on throat and breast, and with a faint light stripe over the bright hazel eyes. It was very small, not more than five inches from point of beak to end of tail; but it had that night crossed the sea from France, and in the last few days it had made a journey of some thousand miles from the north of Africa where it had passed the winter. It had not travelled alone; it had left the coast of Normandy with a company of tired friends; but in the night the wind rose howling in the south-east and scattered the weary but hopeful little band. Many a time in that trying night it would have sunk upon the waves if the thought had not ruled its soul of the cool moist and of varied sunshine and showers, where it had first learned to fly, where the next summer it had learnt to use its voice and to woo a mate, and had brought up its young without disaster. Driven northward by the burning heat of the south, which had dried up the streams, and killed the juicy insects it loved, it had made its way steadily with its comrades to the green moist land of its birth, and its heart was full of ardent hope for another long summer of love and song and happiness.

After a while the clouds passed and the sun came out; then the little bird woke up, and realized that it had eaten nothing since it left the coast of France. In a moment it was stealing up the willow, searching every twig for insects, and finding very few, for the pelting rain had washed the boughs clean; it made its way slowly up the brook, and presently coming to a bit of treeless marsh land, whence the stream was fed, it took a longer flight across a ploughed field, and stopped at a likely-looking spot--a small round pond, closely shut in by willows and hazels. Hardly had it alighted on one of these, when it recognized the faint voice of a bird of its own kind, and returned the single cheep by another like it. In a moment the two birds were together, and recognized each other as having been in company all the way from Africa, until the storm separated them at sea.

“I’m very glad to see you,” said our friend; “but where are the others, and how did you come here?”

Just then it saw an insect on a twig hard by, and went off in an instant to seize it; then another and another; and in its hunger forgot all about the answer to its question.

“Well, you had better catch your fill of insects, and then I can answer your questions,” said the other. “I have been here ever since the sun came out, and though I thought I could hardly have eaten anything after the loss of poor Pipi, I managed to make a good meal as soon as I got my feathers in order.”

“The loss of poor Pipi! What do you mean? Is he only lost or is he dead?”

“Dead as a thrush’s snail!” was the answer of the other bird, who seemed a little put out by his long journey. “I’m very sorry of course, but it was all his own fault. You know how Pipi was always ready for any game; always for prying and poking his beak into anything strange, just like any vulgar sparrow.”

“Don’t talk like that, please,” said our friend whose name was Flip. “Pipi was my particular friend and if you insult him you insult me.”

“Well, don’t get angry,” said the other, “but wait till I tell you how that foolish Pipi came by his end. We started, as you know, at nightfall; Pipi was near me. He was as lively as ever, and was making fun of old Blossom because he had only half his tail feathers--you remember that sunny garden by the Mediterranean, where the cat got hold of Blossom and we thought his last hour had come?--Blossom couldn’t fly quite straight, and Pipi, that mischievous Pipi, said he wondered what sort of a tale Blossom would have to tell when he got to land!”

“But he helped on old Blossom, too,” said Flip; “and don’t you remember how we all had to slacken pace halfway across, before the storm came on, in order not to leave the old creature behind? Pipi would have it so!”

“Yes, I do indeed,” said Twinkle; “and it was a mercy that we ever got here alive. I should like to know why we should risk our lives for old Blossom, or why we should obey Pipi--Pipi of all birds.”

“Come,” said Flip, “don’t be so crusty. You have no cause to be angry with Pipi. I remember very well, when we were among those cruel Italians, how Pipi saved your life: I saw it with my own eyes. You were in an olive-tree by a stone wall, and on the top of the wall sat a boy with a bow and arrows, aiming at you; Pipi gave you our alarm-note, and when you took no notice he flew right at you and made you move. The boy shot the arrow, but seeing two birds he luckily missed both.”

“Well,” said Twinkle, “didn’t I say I could hardly eat because of Pipi’s death? Now I am going to tell how it was. You know how even in our first journey we were specially warned about those lighthouses, which we always so much want to go to: I really don’t know how it is, but somehow one does want dreadfully to go and see what that light is. Pipi was always excited about it; he declared he would find out some day what they are, and now he has found out with a vengeance. Poor old Pipi! He and I and one or two more were together the greater part of the way, but it was very hard to stick to one another. We had better have put off our crossing a day or two. The wind changed to the south-east, and that is very disagreeable; it comes behind you, and forces you on whether you will or no, and it gets in among the feathers and ruffles them about, and lays bare your skin, and blows the breath out of your body, and bangs you about this way and that--I can feel it now,” said Twinkle, in an injured tone, as he turned round his head and smoothed his feathers with an air of great feeling and commiseration for himself.

“Now I didn’t ask him to tell about himself,” thought Flip. “Here he is safe and sound anyhow.” But he held his tongue, and Twinkle went on:--

“After we had got half-way across, a sudden blast of wind broke up our company, and for some time I was quite alone in the darkness. Every now and then I could hear the voices of our comrades, and they must have been close to me, for the wind howled so, that it would have been impossible to catch them at any distance. I was high up, as we all had been, but now it began to rain, and I flew lower down, to see if there was any island or object on which I could rest and get shelter; but that was hard work, I can tell you, for the wind seemed to come from below whenever I opened my wings wide, and gave me such a lifting that I was quite giddy.”

“Go on, please,” said Flip, as the other paused again to recall his own discomfort. Flip felt much inclined to make unpleasant remarks, but swallowed them down with a juicy green fly, which he found at that moment. All this time they had been quietly working about the willows, and eating what they found; for willow-warblers are seldom still, and can talk very well as they search for their food.

“Well, don’t be in too great a hurry,” said Twinkle. “Consider what self-denial it is to me to tell you such a story: it’s nearly as bad as going through it all again. When I succeeded in getting lower down, and could see the white foam of the waves, I suddenly saw a light below me, and a little in front, twinkling like a great hawk’s eye, and--”

“The lighthouse!” cried Flip, with a pang, for he felt sure that the worst part of the story was coming.

“No, not the lighthouse,” said Twinkle. “Don’t interrupt. You’re a most unpleasant bird to tell a story to, stopping one just in the most exciting part: it quite spoils the pleasure of story-telling.”

“Why, I thought--” Flip was going to have reminded him that it was such self-denial, but he thought better of it, and swallowed his impatience with another fly.

“And down I went,” continued Twinkle, “to get a rest; for where there is a light, there must be something to perch on. Well, in a minute or two I found myself clinging with all the strength of my poor claws--” (here he looked at them compassionately for a moment, and gave them a peck or two with his bill, to clear away some tiny particles of salt that still adhered to them).

Flip could hardly help making an angry dash at him, and indeed ruffled his feathers indignantly, but the other was too much occupied with himself to see it.

“Clinging with my poor claws,” said Twinkle, slowly and sadly, “to the rigging of a ship, and trying to get my breath. I hadn’t been there very long, when I heard a voice I knew, and who should seize hold of the same rope but Pipi himself!”

“Was Pipi very bad and tired too?” asked Flip.

“Not a bit,” was the answer. “I never knew such a bird as Pipi. Of course I pointed out to him that we were in great danger, and that we couldn’t hope to hold out much longer--and what do you think he said? ‘Twinkle,’ he said, ‘think of your first nest last year. Don’t you remember those sunny days in the meadow by the brook, and the excitement as the hatching days drew near?’ Can you imagine such folly as to talk of hatching when we were sitting in a place like that, hardly able to hold on for the wind?”

Flip thought he knew why Pipi had said that, but he did not interrupt this time.

“Well,” continued Twinkle, “he went on like that, and told me to cheer up, and said we couldn’t be far from land, for the ship was only a fishing-smack caught in a storm, and they never venture very far from shore; and at last I got very angry with such nonsense, and told him nothing should make me leave go except the wind. So Pipi declared at last that he was going on, and I had better come too; but I wouldn’t, so he opened his wings, and just as he left the rope, somehow or other I did so too.”

“Why,” said Flip, unable to suppress himself this time. “I thought you said Pipi was the last bird in the world you would obey!”