Birds and Beasts 12

Birds and Beasts 12

They were very happy, and their happiness lasted many long years.

 

 

 

 

Misadventures of an Owl

 

 

His plumage was glossy and abundant, his eye alert, his claws long and

strong; in all points he was everything a handsome young owl should be.

For two years he had slept snug under his mother’s wing, the fond object

of her jealous care; but when spring came round again, his father, who

was a very sententious bird, addressed him in these terms—

 

[Illustration: MISADVENTURES OF AN OWL]

 

“You are grown up now, and the time is come when we must part. The nest

would be too small to hold both you and those who will come after you.

Moreover, no owl is ever happy save as head of a household. All sorts of

trials and tribulations await us; men feel nothing but anger and

contempt for our race. No matter for the watch and ward we keep over the

orchards, the war of extermination we wage on the prolific broods that

devastate the wheat, for all our well-meant efforts to aid the harvests

to grow and the fruit-trees to bloom, our only guerdon is to be shot at

with guns. Alas! the most of us end by being nailed up to a barn-door,

with spread-eagled wings. A wife and family will console you under all

this cruel injustice. Year by year your heart will grow green again amid

the joys of domesticity, and you will attach a higher value to life when

you no longer stand alone to bear its burden. So quit the nest, as I did

before you; choose a good helpmeet of your own age, and may you be happy

together, as we are, your mother and I.”

 

Accordingly the youngster took his departure. Gravity comes early to

owls, and though only two years old, he already wore the severe air of

an old philosopher. But the young lady owls, likewise brought up to

scorn worldly pleasures, prefer this serious deportment to the gay

exterior the other birds find so fascinating.

 

He went methodically round the village, and was well received by the

parents, while more than one young thing turned her head to look after

him. But there was not one of them, he thought, like his mother, and as

she was the paragon of all merit in his eyes, he had sworn only to

choose a mate who should resemble her in mind if not in face. He was in

despair, and on the point of returning to the paternal roof when, one

evening, as he was hovering about an old church-steeple, he caught sight

of a charming little head peeping out between the luffer-boards.

 

Was he weary of the search perhaps, or did the little face really remind

him of the adored image of his parent? He lingered long in admiration,

never tired of watching her dainty ways, and little by little something

began to thump inside him, something he had never felt before. She was

busy crunching a mouse, pecking and worrying at it with her sharp beak,

and had very soon left nothing but the bare bones. Then she wiped her

beak and preened her feathers prettily, as every well-bred young lady

owl should.

 

Just as she was finished, she saw him sitting in the next tree, and,

startled at being caught at her toilet, she hid her head under her wing;

nor was he a whit less embarrassed, and each of them gazed at the other

in equal confusion, without saying one word. At last he made up his mind

and spoke to the parents, who both thought him a very charming fellow.

 

It was a quiet wedding, as weddings always are among the owls. There was

no music or nonsense; they were married at night, in the old steeple,

and the moon lent her illumination. When all was over, the parents gave

their blessing, and the young couple set out on their honeymoon.

 

But it was not the sort of jaunt the sparrows indulge in, sailing away

into the blue, so high, so high they seem as if they would never come

back again; _they_ lighted sedately on the bough of an old oak, and,

finding it a good place, stopped there for good. Besides, the oak, being

decrepit with years, had not, as a younger tree would, a whole host of

impudent little cock-sparrows for its denizens; a blackbird lodged on

the first floor, and a magpie had selected the trunk as his residence,

and though both were great chatterers, the owls did not find their

company disagreeable.

 

But it was not so with Father Blackbird and Mother Magpie; they were

fond of gaiety, and the newcomers struck them as dismal neighbours to

have. So they went off to see the tomtits, who are naturally very daring

fellows, and told them about the hum-drum life the happy pair led; and

between them they planned a fine _charivari_ for the benefit of their

new neighbours in the early hours of the morning.

 

Our friends were still fast asleep, snugly ensconced in the depths of a

hollow bole, when the hostile band appeared. Suddenly an appalling

uproar woke them with a start; screwing up their eyes, they tried to

discover what was the matter, but they could not see a thing. Meantime

dawn had broken, the sun was already shooting his beams like fireworks

through the boughs, and great dragonflies were darting to and fro,

glittering like emeralds. At last they made out a whirl of wings,

looming like a black shadow in the clear morning air. Their assailants

swept down and crowded every branch of the old oak, which hummed like a

gigantic harp with the twittering of a thousand throats.

 

The poor owls could make nothing of it; owls are simple-minded folk, and

all they could think of was that another newly-married couple were

celebrating their nuptials, and that the discordant noises they heard

were the cries of transport to be expected under the circumstances. They

shrunk away still deeper in their hole, not wishing to interrupt other

people’s enjoyment. But the tomtits were not satisfied—not they; it was

nothing merely to have startled them in their slumbers; they meant to

expel them from the old oak altogether. Prompted by the magpie, who sat

screaming defiance from the foot of the tree, some of the bolder spirits

poked in their heads at the entrance of the cavern. Inside it was dark

as night, and from the depths four eyes blazed out like balls of fire.

The champions took fright, and fell back hurriedly on the main body.

 

“Cowards!” screeched their amiable ally, raising her harsh voice to its

shrillest pitch; “d’ye mean to leave the villains in peace in their den?

Think of the horrid carnage there will be in the woods every night! Not

one of you will be safe in his nest any more. From time immemorial the

owl tribe has been the scourge of the whole bird nation. Their heads are

full of nothing but wile and wickedness, and the better to shed blood,

they go to work like murderers in the dark! Worse still, they are all

heretics. The witches use them in their incantations. They are birds of

hell. Slay, slay the foes of Holy Church!”

 

This speech rallied the waverers, and all together they forced a way

into the dark, yawning cavern.

 

In a moment a hundred beaks were pecking savagely at the two victims,

who, blinded by the light, struck out wildly in self-defence. Two of the

tomtits were left on the field, while the rest flew away in a panic,

screaming in chorus—“Vengeance! vengeance on the rascally owls!”

 

What had they done? What crime had they committed? Astounded as they

were, and amazed to think what motive should have prompted the attack,

they could no longer doubt that open war was declared upon them.

 

So they went in search of another home, and as night was falling, found

a safe retreat under the eaves of a lonely presbytery. “Here, at any

rate,” they thought, “no one will come to molest us. Alas! it is only

too true—we are not made for the society of our fellow-creatures, and

this deserted roof will hide us better than a prison.”

 

They had happy times; they reared a family of little ones, and lived a

patriarchal life in the hollow under the roof. Everybody has his own way

of being happy in this world of ours, and for all it was different from

the general fashion, this was good enough for them. To begin with,

dwelling by themselves, they knew nothing of envy, and no thought of

ambition vexed them; their only wish was to live as long as possible,

pariahs and outcasts as they were, and grow old together.

 

Let others go in search of adventures; their desires were limited by the

modest horizon they had before their eyes, and a secure abode, poor and

bare though it might be, seemed to them preferable to all the treasures

of Golconda. You see what reasonable, respectable people they were!

 

Certainly their dun-coloured plumage was not of the sort to let them

flaunt in the sunlight like other birds; after spending a luxurious

morning dozing side by side, they would wake just when the linnets,

goldfinches, and chaffinches were going to bed. A great silence brooded

over nature; for the giddy-pates who had been playing truant all the

day, and had left a feather or two of their plumage to dance in every

sunbeam, it would have seemed as dull as death; but they thought

otherwise, and for them the night was filled with infinite music. Did

not the breeze blow soft in the leaves with a murmur as of running

waters and prattling brooks? A wide peace fell upon the woodlands which

from noon to twilight had throbbed under the golden beams of the sun,

while the moon, the owl’s sun, spread her white beams over the landscape

like a river of milk.

 

Then their keen ear, an instrument of extraordinary delicacy, being very

large, and forming, as every bird-lover knows, a double spiral of

enormous dimensions, and admirably adapted to catch the faintest sounds,

noted from afar light rustlings and soft sighs, and a confused murmur of

music, wherein the wind seemed, turn and turn about, to pipe through

clarinet and oboe. Silent and awe-struck, the two outcasts felt the

kindly beneficence of nature moving on the face of the world. At times

louder sounds would mingle with the whisperings of the night, telling

them of the fawns pushing through the matted undergrowth, of companies

of woodland creatures sallying out to feed, lovers like themselves of

the darkness—badgers, polecats, wild-cats, weasels, and rabbits, of a

vast stir of life and activity down in the dim, intricate forest tracks.

Cats were prowling, their yellow eyes flaming along the darkling ways,

while from the homesteads rose rhythmically, pledge of security for all

the host of fur and feathers, the heavy snoring of the sleepers within.

 

Then they would come out and stand at the edge of the eaves, and gaze

forth, as from a balcony, on all the moving spectacle of the kindly

night. Sparkling gleams would flash along the ground like diamonds, and

the slates glitter like so many mirrors on the house-roofs. They could

see the stars reflected in the brook; mysterious eyes looked out from

under the trees, vague shapes went gliding along the road, while high in