Part 20

“I didn’t obey Pipi,” said Twinkle, indignantly. “I went of myself.”

But Flip knew better, for Pipi had a wonderful influence over the other birds, and they all knew that Twinkle in particular could always be led by him.

“Well, there we were again at the mercy of this horrible south-easter. Pipi was a little ahead of me, and kept up his call-note continuously: I kept on answering it as well as I could. We had not been flying long, when suddenly, at no great distance, a light burst out in the darkness. ‘Land and the lighthouse!’ called out Pipi, and on we went at a tremendous speed, for the gale was now almost behind us, roaring furiously. In another moment the light went out as suddenly as it had begun, and then I knew that it was one of those revolving lights that we have sometimes seen in our travels, and I guessed that it was that one on the headland yonder, where we arrived a year ago, that beautiful calm night with the gentle westerly breeze.”

“Oh, dear, dear!” said Flip, “I remember that it puzzled Pipi dreadfully that night, and he declared he would find out all about it some day.”

“Well,” said Twinkle, “his wish has been gratified this year. I was almost too faint and tired to fly any farther, and my pace had slackened, so that Pipi was some way in front, when out came the light again, a great deal bigger than before, and just ahead of us. As I reached it, and was sinking down on the land exhausted, I saw Pipi fly right up to it, and heard a loud tap of his bill against something hard; and then he fell down on the balustrade in front of the light, and there he lay, as dead as a thrush’s snail, as I said before.”

Flip was silent, and put his head under his wing to hide his grief. “Did you go and look at him?” he said at last.

“How can you ask such a question?” answered Twinkle. “I sank to the ground, and got into some long grass under a bit of hedge by the lighthouse. I hadn’t strength left to take wing again; and if I could have done it, I should have been blown against the lighthouse: and what was more, the light had gone out again, and I couldn’t see where it was.”

“But the light came out once more, I suppose?” asked Flip.

“I don’t know,” said the other. “I put my head under my wing and went to sleep under the hedge; which is exactly what you too would have done, if you had been there.”

Flip said no more; but he formed a strong opinion about Twinkle, and felt that he did not care for his company any longer. Watching his opportunity, while the other was at work on a fly, he flitted quietly into the thick of the alders on the other side of the round pond, and taking a perch right down in the roots by the water, began to give vent to his own sorrow by uttering a sad cheep every minute or two. Poor Pipi, the kindest and the cleverest of them all! always helping some one, and always in good humour! never without some little fun of his own, even in the most awkward moments! How could they possibly get back again to Africa, when the summer was over, without Pipi? How indeed would Flip have the heart to sing to his wife during the nesting-time, unless Pipi’s voice was heard from the next tree? Pipi was always singing, and his voice was the best of all: for while the others were always finding their voices go up with a turn at the end of their strain, like those commonplace chaffinches, Pipi almost always brought down his in a perfect cadence, which is the great accomplishment of a willow-warbler. And when the young were fledged, no young father of a brood was so careful or so beloved as Pipi. He did not leave all the work to his wife, as some did; Mrs. Pipi had been hard-worked ever since they built their nest at the foot of the big elm-tree, and now she was sent off every day in the early morning to eat her fill of insects in a neighbouring garden, with a special warning to beware of the old gray cat, who was always creeping about between the pea-rows. Then Pipi used to take the young ones under his own charge, and put off his own breakfast till he had fed them well, popping the food into their gaping beaks as fast as if his wife had been there to help him. What fun he used to make of them! Flip remembered how he was once sitting on a bough, singing to his own wife, who had not yet hatched all her eggs, when he saw Pipi trying to entice his young ones out of the nest. They all came out at last, except Dot the youngest, who sat at the door of the nest, and looked through the buttercup stems into the wide world with fearful and restless eyes. Pipi tried all he could to make her come out; he perched on the bough above her and sang his best, so that her little black eyes twinkled, for she knew that music well; but still she hesitated. Then he picked up a little green caterpillar and put it down just in front of her; her bill opened wide at the sight of such a juicy morsel, but still she did not come. Just then a snail came slowly by, with its shell on its back.

“Dot,” said Pipi, “do you see that creature with his nest on his back? Shall I tell you why he must always carry it? When he was a nestling, he wouldn’t come out of his nest like the others; so at last the nest stuck to him, and he carries it to this day, and always will. So take care the same thing doesn’t happen to you, Dot--I rather think I see your back beginning to stick to that bit of moss; and if you don’t make haste--” But before he could finish the sentence, the horror-stricken Dot was out of the nest; and in another minute she was on a twig beside him.

Recollections like these passed through poor Flip’s clouded mind, as he lurked in the stems of the alder-root. But after a while, as the wind went down, he bestirred himself, and flying up to the top of the alder, began to look about him. There was the sea, and there the little gap, with the stream, where he had landed: and there, right above it, on a headland, was the lighthouse. It would not take long to get there, and he felt that he must go and find out if anything was to be seen of poor Pipi. A flight would do him good, and there were plenty of hedges to rest on. So after a number of quick low flights from hedge to hedge and tree to tree, he came to the front of the lighthouse, and sank rather tired into the long grass where Twinkle had landed in the night. Peeping out after a while, he flew about a little, searching for poor Pipi’s body: but nothing was to be seen of it. Then, taking courage, he flew up on to the platform in front of the light, on which Twinkle had described Pipi’s falling, but neither here was there a trace to be seen of Pipi.

Just as he was going to fly off he heard a voice inside the lantern-room, and listened, for birds can understand all languages.

“Well, Peter,” said the voice, “what did you get in last night’s gale? The warblers ought to be coming now; we have had the chiffchaffs and the wheatears, and a few redstarts; who are the next earliest this year?”

Flip peeped in at a corner of the window; it was dangerous, but he might see or hear something of Pipi. The man who had spoken was a tall, hale, and hearty looking old gentleman, with a face glowing with its own good-nature as well as with the blustering of the gale. He was answered by the lighthouse-man, who wore an oilskin hat, and was short and weather-beaten.

“Good afternoon, Professor,” he said, as he put his hand into a deep pocket of his overcoat, “I’ve a thing or two for you this time; sure to get something in a gale like that, though for the matter of that a calm night suits ’em better. We’ll have more to-night again, I’ll answer for it. Here they be: some of ’em knocked agen the window and fell on the platform (Flip felt his ears tingling and his brain swimming); some on ‘em were blowed right away and we couldn’t find ’em. Wrens we calls ’em here, though they ben’t just like our jenny wrens, all the same,” said he, as he pulled out a number of little birds and laid them on the table.

Flip shuddered; he recognized his kindred, but their eyes were closed, their heads hung down, and their feathers lay loose and heavy: there was no telling one from another, especially at his distance from the table. Still, he had no doubt in his mind that Pipi was among them.

“Willow-wrens, if you like,” said the Professor; “willow-warblers, I like to call them; Phylloscopus trochilus is the scientific name, and you will find all about them in that book of mine I gave you, at page 432. A redstart too, I see, poor fellow; so much the worse for somebody’s garden or field this next May or June. But now, where’s the diary; let us have them all down--wind, what was it, south-east by south?”

“That’s it, sir,” said the lighthouse-man; and they sat down together at the table, and began to turn the birds over one by one. Flip watched till they came to the last, in the dim expectation of recognizing Pipi; but it was impossible, for the dead eyes showed no traces of their luckless owner’s identity. It was a mournful scene, and Flip was just about to take flight, when he heard Peter’s voice again.

“There be another on ’em down stairs, Professor,” he said; “he were only stunned like, and my missus said as she’d keep un a bit, and see if he’d come to life again.”

Flip’s feathers stood on end with excitement.

“Missus,” called out Peter, putting his head out of the door, “what ha’ you done with that bit of a wren as I give you this marnin’?”

“Putten him in the old canary cage, and given him some crumbs and milk,” said the wife from below; “but he won’t touch neither of ’em, and he’s as bad as can be. Ask the Professor gentleman if he’ll come down and see him.”

Thereupon the Professor and Peter went down stairs, and Flip could hear no more. He felt sick at heart. Even if this was Pipi, it was clear enough he was going to die. If he got nothing better than crumbs and milk, how in the name of all that’s feathered was he going to live? “What stupid creatures these men-folks are!” thought Flip; and perhaps he was not far wrong. But he did not know what a professor meant, and he was not aware that the genial old gentleman from the distant University knew almost as much about the food of willow-warblers as he did himself.

Flip flew round to the back of the lighthouse, and looking in through the window, he saw the Professor sitting by the fire with something in his hand. But his back was turned to the window, and Flip could not see what it was. The woman was looking over the Professor’s shoulder, and a small bird-cage stood on the table, the sight of which made Flip tremble all over. At last the Professor put down on the table the thing he had in his hand: it was a willow-warbler, still alive, for the beak was slowly opening and shutting; but the eyes were closed, and it was evidently dying. Flip could not tell whether or no it were Pipi; the room was now getting dark, and the window was away from the sun. But it was no use waiting any longer; Flip felt sure the bird must die, and even if it did not, it would be put into the cage to pine away for want of air and proper food; and after all, how was he to tell that Pipi was not among the dead birds up stairs? So he flew away with an aching heart, feeling that there was nothing left to do, but to try and forget all about it. “And yet,” thought poor Flip, as he reached the little pond once more, “I can try and remember what poor Pipi used to do, and how good-natured and cheerful he was; and so far as there ever can be another Pipi, I will be he.”

* * * * *

The willow-warblers do not all take flight together to their inland haunts after their arrival from the sea, but work their way gradually through woods and hedges, refreshing and strengthening themselves as they go. The party to which Flip and Twinkle belonged had not far to go to get to the meadow by the brook, of which Pipi had reminded Twinkle on the fishing-smack--the meadow where they themselves had reared their brood last year, and close to another, not less delicious, where they themselves had been born. In two or three days they had reached it, and soon began to exercise their voices, so as to be ready for the arrival of the hen birds, who always come a few days later. This year the weather continued cold and stormy, with strong April showers, and the hens did not come for a day or two later than usual. What excitement there was when they arrived at last, straggling in by twos and threes along the bushes that grew by the brook’s edge, so as to keep sheltered from the wind! Flip went down the willows to meet them, and asked each one whether she had come by the lighthouse, or seen anything of Pipi; but the hens were either too tired or too excited to pay much attention to him.

“That is not the way to welcome us,” they said; “accidents must happen, and must be forgotten. No, we saw nothing of Pipi. Why don’t you sing, instead of telling us sad tales?” And on they went into the meadow, where the songs of the cock birds were calling them.