Featherland | Page 4

greenfinch, looking very knowing.
"No, it isn't; he comes from Spain, I know," said the goldfinch.
"Chiswick, Chiswick," shouted the sparrow.
"Tchah," said the jackdaw.
"Twit, twit," said the nuthatch.
"Little bit o' bread and no cheese," said the yellowhammer.
"Ah, we'll `twit' him with his theft," said the sage old starling; "and it's neither bread nor cheese he'll get here. He's a thief; a cheat; a--"
"Quack, quack," cried a duck from the pond.
"Ah! and a quack," continued the starling, and then he grew so excited that the rest of his speech was lost in sputtering, chattering, and fizzing; and all the birds burst out laughing at him, for all his little sharp shining feathers were standing up all over his head, and he looked so comical that they could not contain themselves, but kept on tittering, till all of a sudden--
"Cuckoo!" said the stranger, and came right into view.
"He's a foreigner," shouted the birds; "give it him;" and away they went, mobbing the strange bird; flying at him, over him, under him, round and round him, darting in and out in all directions, and pecking him so sharply that he was obliged to make signs for mercy; when he was immediately taken into custody by the starlings, and made to go into a hole in the cedar, where a jackdaw kept watch while they made preparations for trying the thief.
CHAPTER THREE.
PREPARATIONS FOR THE TRIAL.
And a fine job those preparations were. It was all in vain that a meeting was held, and the perch taken; everybody wanted to talk at once, and, what was worse still, everybody did talk at once, and made such a clatter, that Tom, the gardener's boy, threw his birch-broom up in the cedar-tree, and then had his ears boxed because it did not come down again, but lay across two boughs ever so high up and out of reach, to the great annoyance of Mrs Turtledove, a nervous lady of very mournful habit.
The birch-broom scattered the birds for a while, but they soon came back, for they were not going to be frightened away by a bundle of twigs, when they did not even care for a scarecrow, but used to go and sit upon its head; while the tomtit declared it was a capital spider trap, and used to pick out no end of savoury little spinners for his dinner.
When the birds had all settled again, they went to business in a quieter way, for they did not wish to be again driven off in such a sweeping manner; so at last they decided that the owl should be judge, because he looked big and imposing.
"Oh!" said Specklems the starling, "but he's so sleepy and chuckleheaded."
"All the better, my dear sir," said the magpie, who had come back on hearing the news of the capture; "all the better, my dear sir, for you know you will be for the prosecution, and then, with a highly respectable jury, we shall get on capitally; in fact, hardly want any judge at all, only to keep up appearances."
"Whew, whoo, whistlerustle," away they went, and settled in a cloud on the top of the old ivied house, and round about the owl's nest--birds of all colours, sorts, and sizes; long tails and short tails; long bills and short bills; worm-workers, grub-grinders, bud-biters, snail-crushers, seed-snappers, berry-bringers, fruit-finders, all kinds of birds--to fetch Judge Owl to sit at the court, to try the foreign thief, who had made such a commotion, trouble, bother, worry, and disturbance; and kicked up such a dust, such a shindy, such a hobble, as had never before been known in Featherland.
"Hallo! here, Shoutnight; hallo! wake up; anybody at home?" said the magpie, holding his head very much on one side, and peeping with one eye at a time into the snug place where the fuzzy old gentleman used to bring his mice home. "Hallo! here," he continued, throwing in a small lump of mortar, which woke up the owl with a start.
"Who-hoo-hoo-hoo?" shouted the master of the house.
"Who-who tu-who-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo?" shouted the mistress.
"Ciss-s-s--phistle--phut-snap," chorused the juveniles, who had been disturbed by their mamma, treading upon one, scratching another on the side of the head, and giving number three such a crack with her wing that the little fellow was knocked out of the nest into an old sooty part of the chimney, and came back such a little guy that his mother hardly knew him.
"Who-who-oo-oo-oo?" said the owl again.
"`Who? who? who?' why, whom do you suppose, but all your cousins of Featherland, come to give you a call?" said the magpie.
Whereupon the old gentleman came forth in a very dignified way, with his wife's spectacles on his nose, and then, because he could not see a bit, stood winking and blinking and nodding his great head, and bowing, and sticking up his