Part 8

“What a fat little brute you are,” he said, as he poked his dirty finger into the poor bird’s stomach. “But we’ll soon take that down; we’ll soon starve you into a nice slim canary. No more fat living for you, you little pig.”

Every feather of Jubilee’s wings and tail had to be painted separately, and washed before it was painted; and the poor worn-out bird had to lie there on the table all that day with his legs tied, and was given nothing to eat. After it was all over he was untied and put in a small cage, but kept in the same dingy inner room, away from the street. Two days later he was taken out again, and the whole process had to be gone over once more; and all this time he was getting thinner and thinner. It was a week after he had been sold, before he was pronounced fit to be taken into the shop, and hung in the window in his cage; a label was tied on to it on which was written--

“Canary, a Bargain. “Warranted Sound. Only 3/6.”

Poor Jubilee! He was at least worth three and sixpence, and his affairs were beginning to go up again. If he could only have the luck to be bought by one of the royal family, all might be well again. But it was not to be. And for a long time nobody even offered to buy him. A fat bullfinch was sold, and Jubilee was quite glad to get rid of him; he was so fat, and so proud of his portly red waistcoat. Linnets and Goldfinches went, and others took their places, and there was always a pretty brisk sale of canaries. But Jubilee was neglected, probably because he used to sit on his perch and mope and ruffle his feathers, from hunger and hatred of the world. He looked sulky, and of course he never sang; so the customers would have nothing to say to him. It was a sad downfall for him, to sit in a cage all day and mope, and have faces made at him by street-boys, who loved to flatten their noses against the window and make all sorts of horrible noises and cat-calls, until the old man ran out with a stick and drove them away. But hunger and misfortune had done Jubilee some good, though it had made him very miserable. He had lost all his old pride, and had had all the nonsense knocked out of his head which his foolish father had stored up there.

One day he was sitting on his perch, dull and listless as usual, and terribly annoyed by the shrill singing of three canaries who were in the window with him, and were always making fun of him because he was only a sham canary and couldn’t sing; when two boys stopped at the window. They were of quite a different kind from any who had been there before; they did not flatten their noses against the glass, or make horrible noises; they wore good clothes, and had broad white collars which were quite clean, instead of dirty old handkerchiefs. They looked a good deal at Jubilee, and were evidently talking about him; but he could not hear what they said. At last they came into the shop and offered the old man two shillings for him.

“Make it half-a-crown,” said he, “and you shall have him;” for he was anxious to get rid of Jubilee. He might begin to moult, or the paint might wear off; and then there might be mischief.

The boys consented to give half-a-crown, and took Jubilee away with them. How glad he was to get out of that shop! Surely better times were coming! He was once more in the hands of the aristocracy, and certainly they handled him much more gently than the street boys. They carried him to a big house in Belgravia, put him in an empty cage, and began to examine him closely. Then they took him out and turned up his feathers.

“I thought so,” said one: “I told you so when we were looking at him through the window. That fellow’s a regular old thief. It’s nothing but a common sparrow. Run and ask father to come and see him.”

The other boy soon returned with a kind-looking gentleman, who laughed when he saw Jubilee, and told the boys they were lucky to have caught a well-known thief and impostor. Then he sent for a cab, took the cage and the boys, and drove down to the street where the old man lived, taking up a policeman on the way. And in another half-hour Jubilee found himself at a police-station; he was put in a sunny window, and the paint partly washed off him, the old man was locked up in a cell, and the gentleman and the boys were to come next day and give evidence.

The next day Jubilee was brought into court in his cage. It was not very pleasant; for he was half yellow and half his natural brown, and all the people laughed at him when he was handed up to the magistrate to be looked at. But a kind-hearted policeman, who had taken care of him the evening before, and given him seeds and water, had pity on him, and took him out of court as soon as he had been looked at, and washed the paint quite off him, and put him back in his sunny window. The case was soon proved, and when the old man had been sent away to prison for obtaining money on false pretences, the policeman asked the boys if he might keep the bird, as it was only a sparrow, and his sick wife would be very glad of it to keep her company while he was out on his beat. The boys gladly let him have it, and Jubilee was once more carried off in his cage to a new residence.

This was a small two-storied house in Pimlico. The policeman carried him up-stairs to his wife who lay ill in bed.

“Ah, Harry dear,” said she, “I’m so glad to see you; I’ve been waiting so long for you. I thought the morning would never come to an end. And what have you got there?”

“Something to make the time go quicker for you,” said the policeman; and he put the cage down on his wife’s bed, and told her the story of the sparrow.

“Poor bird,” said she, “poor thing. I can feel for him, as I’m caged up too, and can’t get out into the fresh air. But thank you, Harry, for thinking of me. He’ll be a companion to me, these long dreary mornings. But what shall we call him?”

“Well,” said Harry, “I reckon he’s about two months old; and to-day’s the 20th of August; so that just about takes us back to Jubilee day. I think he must have been born very near about the Jubilee. Let us call him Jubilee.”

And Jubilee felt that he was among friends, for now he had his right name, and was made much of, and was really of some use. And the policeman’s uniform was consoling too: for it brought back to his mind St. James’s Palace, and the policemen walking up and down the street below, and the scarlet-coated sentinels marching to and fro in front of the Prince of Wales’s gates.

And so two or three weeks went by, and Jubilee sat on his perch, and was fed well with seeds, and wished he could have sung like the canaries to show his gratitude and make the time pass quicker for the suffering wife. She grew paler and paler, and wearier and wearier, and seemed to take pleasure in nothing but Jubilee, and in looking for the time when her husband should come home. She would take the bird out of his cage, and he would hop about on the bed, and take seeds and crumbs out of her hand. He did not want to escape, and meet with new perils and adventures. Never had Jubilee been so happy before.

One day the doctor came, and told her husband that if his wife was ever to get well, she must go into the country for fresh air. It was hard on Harry, for he could not go with her; he must stay in London, and earn his living. But he took his savings out of the bank, and with these he contrived to get his wife taken to Victoria station, and thence in the train to the Sussex village where her parents lived. And of course Jubilee went with her.

I cannot stop to tell the wonders of that journey for Jubilee, or the delight of getting into pure fresh breezes among the Sussex downs. He was put into a window in an old red-brick cottage, where he soon learnt to forget all about London, and the pride of his early days, and all the horrors he had gone through. And, in spite of his being only a sparrow, and having never a song to sing, he was able to soothe the sick wife’s weary hours, and perhaps loved her as dearly as she loved him.

But she got no better; and one day the doctor said that a telegram must be sent at once to fetch her husband from London. When he came in the afternoon, she was lying unconscious, with Jubilee on a chair beside the bed. Jubilee did not know what followed; but before it was dark the policeman had taken his cage to the window and opened the door, saying in a voice that trembled as the bird had never heard it tremble before--

“We shall not want you any more, little Jubilee; go your way, and take our thanks with you.”

Jubilee flew out of the cage into the free air. What has since become of him I cannot tell you. But we may be sure that he did not go back to the perils of London streets, or to the pride and glory of a royal palace.

THE FALCON’S NEST.

Up the little street of thatched fishermen’s cottages, that ran inland from the stony beach and then curved away under the swelling down, there hurried early one May morning a dark-eyed girl, with a wounded pigeon in her hand. The wings of the bird were fluttering, as if it were in pain; a feather dropped here and there upon the road, and there was blood at its beak. The girl pressed it to her cheek in loving pity, and her loose dark brown hair fell over it, as the morning breeze followed her from the sea.

She stopped at a cottage gate, half way up the street, unlatched it with her free hand, passed through the little garden, and ran into the cottage without knocking. No one was in the little room.

“Harold!” she cried. “Harold! where are you?”

A boy of fifteen, tall and lithe, bonny-looking, and fair-haired, came in through the back door. He wore a blue jersey, and seemed made for a seafaring life.

“Why, Molly, it’s not seven o’clock, and we haven’t had breakfast yet. I thought you girls were in bed at this time of day. Hallo! What’s the matter with the pigeon?”