Featherland | Page 6

enjoying a most delightful dream: he was living in a country where there were no cats, nor any other living things but slugs, snails, and grubs; while all kinds of fruit grew in profusion, so that there was no difficulty in obtaining any amount of food; but one great drawback to his happiness was an ugly, misshapen little bird, which would keep running after him, and crying, "Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee," or else shouting at him to "wake up."
"Wake up, wake up," cried the voice.
"Get along with you, do," said Flutethroat.
"Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee," cried the voice again.
"Oh! bother," said Flutethroat, slowly drawing his head out from beneath his wing, and finding that the voices were real, and plainly to be heard on both sides of the puzzled bird; for Mrs Flutethroat was crying out "Wake up, wake up," and the bottle-tits were squabbling more than ever for the warmest place.
"There, at last," said Mrs Flutethroat, "if you sleep after that fashion, that old green-eyed cat must have you some day, and I shall be made a disconsolate widow."
"Well, what's the matter?" said Flutethroat, opening his yellow bill quite an inch, and gaping dreadfully without putting a wing before his mouth.
"What's the matter?" said his mate crabbily. "Why, look at those nasty little feather-balls peedle-weedling; who can put up with it? They've no business there at all. They've been making that noise for half-an-hour."
"Well, go to sleep, and don't take any notice."
"But I can't; I've been trying ever so long, and they won't let me. Every now and then I think they have gone to sleep, but they only burst out worse than ever. There, hark at them; isn't it dreadful?"
"Heigho--he--ha--ha--hum--mum; yes, very," said Flutethroat. "Oh! dear; how sleepy I am!"
"Sleepy," said Mrs Flutethroat crossly; "so am I; then why don't you go and stop that dreadful noise?"
"How can I stop it? They have as good a right to be there as we have to be here; so we must not interfere with them."
"But you must stop it," said his wife, getting so cross that Flutethroat was obliged to say "Very well," and go slowly towards the fir-tree, where the tiny birds were sitting in a row, and when he got up to them there they were tired out and fast asleep; the last one awake having dropped off just as he was half through saying "weedle," and as he was going to hop over his neighbours' backs to get in the middle.
Flutethroat stopped to look at the little downy grey mites, and could not help thinking how pretty they looked; when he went back to the laurel bush, and found his mate fast asleep too; and so there was nothing else for it but to turn himself into a ball of feathers, which he quickly did; and then there was nought to be heard but the night breezes of early spring rustling through the half bare trees, and hurrying off to fetch water from the sea to drop upon the ground, so that flowers and grass might spring up, and earth look bright and gay once more.
"Kink-kink-kink," cried Flutethroat, darting through the shrubbery next morning, and rousing up his cousins, who were soon busy at work finishing their nest and getting everything in apple-pie order. How hard they all worked; fetching materials from all sorts of distant places, and picking only those of the most sober hues, such as would not attract the notice of those people who might be passing by; and then how carefully was every straw, or hair, or thread woven in and out and secured, so that the walls of the nests grew up neat, tight, and compact as possible, and all the while so tightly fastened that nothing short of great violence could move them from their place. As for the nests of Flutethroat and his cousins, they were so warmly plastered inside, that it might have been thought that they meant their little nests to be substantial houses to last them for years to come.
"Caw-aw--caw-aw--caw-aw," cried a rook up in the high limes.
"Caw-caw-caw-caw," cried all the rest of the rooks up in the high limes. And then such a chorus broke forth that the whole of Greenlawn was in a state of alarm, and called a meeting in the cedar to know what was the matter.
"There's somebody shot," said Mr Specklems, the starling.
"Nonsense," said the thrush; "there was no pop. It must be something much worse than that."
"Send some one to ask," said the jackdaw.
"Ah! to be sure," said everybody in chorus; and so it was decided that the jackdaw should go and see, and then come back and deliver his report.
Off he went; and all the time he was gone the birds in the cedar made a noise of their own, almost equal to that in