speak: “think it over, and you’ll find it true. I must get on. Well, we waited patiently, though we were very sad, and at last came the rain, and we finished the nest. Ah! how delicious the rain is after a drought! You stay indoors, poor things, and grumble, and flatten your noses against the nursery windows. We think it delightful, and watch the thirsty plants drinking it in, and the grass growing greener every minute; it cools and refreshes us, and sweetens our tempers, and makes us chatter with delight as we catch the juicy insects low under the trees, and fills us with fresh hope and happiness. Yes, we had a few happy days then, though we little knew what was coming. An egg was laid, and my wife nestled on it, and I caught flies and fed her, – and soon another egg was laid, and then, – then came the worst of all.”
The Martin paused and seemed hardly able to go on, and Gwenny was silent out of respect for his feelings. At last he resumed.
“One afternoon, when the morning’s feeding was over, I flew off, so joyful did I feel, and coursed up and down over meadow and river in the sunshine, till the lengthening shadows warned me that my wife would be getting hungry again. I sped home at my quickest pace, and flew straight to the nest. If I had not been in such a hurry I might have noticed a long straw sticking out of it, and then I should have been prepared for what was coming; but I was taken by surprise, and I never shall forget that moment. I clung as usual to the nest, and put my head in before entering. It was a piteous sight I saw! My wife was not there; the eggs were gone; and half a dozen coarse white feathers from the poultry yard told me what had happened. Before I had time to realise it, I heard a loud fierce chatter behind me, felt a punch from a powerful bill in my back, which knocked me clean off the nest, and as I flew screaming away, I saw a great coarse dirty sparrow, with a long straw in his ugly beak, go into the nest just as if it were his own property. And indeed it now was his property, by right of wicked force and idle selfishness; for as long as I continued to hover round, he sat there looking out, his cruel eyes watching me in triumph. I knew it was no good for me to try and turn him out, for I should never have lived to tell you the story. Look at my bill! it’s not meant to fight with, nor are my claws either. We don’t wish to fight with any one; we do no one any harm. Why should we be bullied and persecuted by these fat vulgar creatures, who are too lazy to build nests for themselves? Up there at the farm-house they have turned every one of us out of house and home, and I daresay that next year we shall have to give up your snug house too. You could prevent it if you liked, but you take no notice, and you think us always happy!”
This was too much for poor Gwenny, and the tears began to fall. “No, no,” she implored, “you shall come here again, you must come here next year! I’ll tell father, and I know he’ll protect you. We’ll do all we can if you’ll only promise to come again and have a better summer next year – I’ll promise, if you’ll promise.”
“Dear child, I didn’t mean to make you cry,” said the Martin. “It’s all right now, so dry your eyes. We built another nest, and there it is over your head. But it’s very late in the season, and if the cold sets in early my little ones will have hard work to keep alive. In any case they will be late in their journey south, and may meet with many trials and hardships. But we must hope for the best, and if you’ll do your best to keep your promise, I’ll do my best to keep mine. Now we are friends, and must try not to forget each other. As I said, this is your home and mine too. Often and often have I thought of it when far away in other lands. This year I thought I should have hardly one pleasant recollection to carry with me to the south, but now I shall have you to think of, and your promise! And I will come back again in April, if all is well, and shall hope to see you again, and your father and mother, and Aunt Charlotte, and the sn – ”
“Gwenny, Gwenny!” said a well-known voice; “my dear child, fast asleep out of doors, and evening coming on! It’s getting cold, and you’ll have another chill, and drive us all to distraction. Run to the kitchen and make the kettle boil, and you can warm yourself there before the fire.”
“I’m not cold, Aunt Charlotte, and I’m not asleep,” said Gwenny, stretching herself and getting up. “And, please, no boiling water to-day! It’s fairyland in the garden to-day, and I really can’t have the creatures killed, I really can’t!”
“Can’t what!” cried Aunt Charlotte, lifting the pan in one hand and the garden scissors in the other, in sheer amazement. “Well, what are we coming to next, I wonder! Fairyland! Is the child bewitched?”
But at that moment the Martin, who had left his perch, flew so close to Aunt Charlotte’s ear that she turned round startled; and catching sight at that moment of the carriage coming down the lane, hastened to open the gate and welcome Gwenny’s father and mother.
Gwenny looked up at the Martin’s nest and nodded her thanks; and then she too ran to the gate, and seizing her father with both hands, danced him down the garden, and told him she had made a promise, which he must help her to keep. It was an hour before they came in again, looking as if they had greatly enjoyed themselves. Aunt Charlotte had gone home again, and the snails were left in peace. And as the Martin flew out of his nest, and saw Gwenny and her father watching him, he knew that the promise would be kept.
THE SANDPIPERS
Fresh and sweet from its many springs among the moors, where the Curlew and the Golden Plover were nesting, the river came swiftly down under the steep slopes of the hills; pausing here and there in a deep, dark pool under the trees, into which the angler would wade silently to throw his fly to the opposite bank, and then hurrying on for a while in a rapid flow of constant cheerful talk. Then making for the other side of its valley, it quieted down again in another deep pool of still water: and, as the valley opened out, it too spread itself out over a pebbly bed, welcoming here another stream that rushed down from the hills to the west.
Just here, where winter floods had left a wide space of stones and rubbish between the water and the fields, and before the river gathered itself together again for a swift rush into another pool, a pair of Sandpipers had made their scanty nest and brought up their young in safety for two years running. And here they were again, this last June, safely returned from all the perils of travel, and glorying in a nestful of four large and beautiful eggs of cream colour spotted with reddish-brown blotches. The nest was out of reach even of the highest flood, but within hearing of the river’s pleasant chat: for without that in their ears the old birds could not have done their work, nor the young ones have learnt the art of living. It was placed among the bracken under an old thorn-bush, on the brink of a miniature little precipice some four feet high, the work of some great flood that had eaten out the shaly soil.
The Sandpipers felt no fear, for there was no village at hand, and hardly a boy to hunt for nests: the fishermen kept to the bank of the river or waded in it, and only glanced for a moment in admiration at the graceful figure of the male bird, as he stood bowing on a stone in mid-stream, gently moving body and tail up and down in rhythmical greeting to the water that swirled around him, and piping his musical message to the wife sitting on her eggs near at hand.
One day when he was thus occupied, before making a fresh search for food for her, an answering pipe from the nest called him to her side. He guessed what it was, for hatching time was close at hand. When he reached the nest, he found that inside the first egg that had been laid a tiny echo of his own clear pipe was to be heard. Whether you or I could have heard it I cannot say; but to the keen ears of the parents it was audible enough, and made their hearts glow with the most delightful visions of the future. And this hidden chick was wonderfully lively and talkative, more so than any chick of theirs had been before he came out into the world. It was quite unusual for a Sandpiper, and both the parents looked a little serious. Nor was their anxiety allayed when the egg-shell broke, and a little black eye peered out full of life and mischief.
Then out came a head and neck, and then a sticky morsel of a mottled brown body, which almost at once got its legs out of the shell, and began to struggle out of the nest. Was ever such a thing known before? The old birds knew not whether to laugh or cry, but they hustled him back into the nest in double quick time, and made him lie down till the sun and air should have dried him up a little. Hard work the mother had of it for the next day or two to keep that little adventurer under her wing while the other eggs were being hatched. When he was hungry he would lie quiet under her