"Wee Tim'rous Beasties" Part 5

He was obviously quoting again.

"You couldn't exterminate me if you tried, and, therefore, you very properly don't suggest it. I have been called the Avian Rat, and I _am_ the Avian Rat. You can no more get rid of me than you can of my four-footed counterpart. It would be a bad day for you if you could."

"But you must admit that both you and the rat are increasing in numbers, and, therefore, in destructiveness. What is to be the end of it?"

"The end of it will be that you will preserve our enemies instead of shooting them at sight."

"Meaning?"

"Hawks, owls, weasels, and so on."

"But hawks would never come near the towns?"

"We aren't in town the whole year round. Even the c.o.c.kneyest of sparrows has his month or two in the cornfields. I don't mind telling you that one of the reasons we have for clinging to human habitations is that we are thus sure of sanctuary. Our natural enemies will always be welcomed with a gun. They know that, too, and keep away. Make it an offence to kill a bird or beast of prey, and you will see a difference in the rats and sparrows."

"What about the pheasants?" said I.

"There would be fewer pheasants," said the sparrow; "and, if you only knew it, they would taste better, if there were."

[Ill.u.s.tration: YOU HAVE BEEN SHOT AT.]

"Sparrow," said I, "to speak disrespectfully of the battue places you at once outside the pale. You _are_ an Avian Rat. You _do_ consume an inordinate quant.i.ty of corn. Since history began you have been an impudent parasite on man. As a hieroglyphic character you signified the enemy.

Choleric old gentlemen have been roused to frenzy over your misdeeds. You have been shot at, trapped, poisoned, netted. Like the chafers, you have been excommunicated. You have been made into a yearly tribute, by the thousand. Laws have been enacted to compa.s.s your destruction, letters have been written to the _Field_, and yet--and yet--an inscrutable Providence has decreed that you shall survive, increase, and multiply. What _good_ do you do?"

[Ill.u.s.tration: TRAPPED.]

"Have you ever heard me sing?" said the sparrow.

"Sing!" I cried; "that sempiternal twitter, that intolerable chirrup that destroys the best and latest hours of sleep! Do you call that singing?"

"What bird would you prefer?" he blandly inquired.

I considered for a moment. The grim possibility of ten thousand nightingales yodelling in chorus, of ten thousand skylarks, or of ten thousand cuckoos, determined my answer.

"I cannot think of one," said I. "But this is no merit on your part, it is merely a qualification of evil."

[Ill.u.s.tration: NETTED.]

"I thought you would acknowledge _that_," said the sparrow. "But, seriously, you ask me what good I do, and I will tell you. That my infant food consisted entirely of insects and caterpillars you already know. Turn the statistician to work who has so cunningly reduced my corn-depredations to pounds, s.h.i.+llings, and pence, and he will a.s.suredly find that the insects devoured by the infant sparrow population in a year will amount to hundreds of millions. These, mind you, are insects large enough to be brought to us in our parent's beaks.

[Ill.u.s.tration: AVIAN RAT, INDEED! RATHER AVIAN SCAVENGER!]

"But what of the insect eggs devoured by us in winter, when most of your pretty insect-eating birds have flown to where the insect is commoner, fatter, and fuller-flavoured? It is we stay-at-home British birds that really keep the insects down. I know that insect eggs do not appear in our poor dissected gizzards. How should they? How would you recognize their remains, O sapient sparrow-shooters? But they are there, for all that.

Those blessed with eyes can see us hunting for them in the fallen leaves, among the garbage, in the crannies of the very pavement.

[Ill.u.s.tration: I FELT ASHAMED.]

"What, again, of weed seeds in general, and knotgra.s.s in particular? Avian Rat, indeed! rather Avian Scavenger, who draws his hard-earned pay in corn. Can you grudge him a few paltry millions? Would you exterminate him because in your blindness you only note the debit side? There is a Power behind the sparrow. It is Nature herself, and against Her fixed resolve nothing avails."

He had worked himself into an incoherent frenzy; but, even as he relapsed from this fierce air of consequence to his vulgarian self, I felt ashamed.

THE AWAKENING OF THE DORMOUSE

He lay face downwards--two tiny fists tight-clenched against his cheeks, his feet curled up to meet them, his tail swung gracefully across his eyes.

Nine weeks had he lain thus, self-entombed. Within the hollow of the old hazel-stump he had fas.h.i.+oned a rough sphere of honeysuckle bark; within this, again, a nest of feathery gra.s.s stems. He had put the roof on last of all.

A winter sunbeam pierced the screen of woodbine, and, for a moment, shed the warmth of springtime on the nest. His whiskers gave a feeble flicker in response. Next day the treacherous radiance lingered. He unclenched one fist, and wound four tiny fingers round a gra.s.s-stem. On the fourth day he half-opened his eyes (even half-opened they were beautiful), and sat up, dazed and blinking. The sunbeam had reached his heart.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "WHAT, AWAKE?" SHOUTED THE SQUIRREL.]

Yet it was a full hour before he was conscious that he lived. At first he felt nothing but a dull quickening throb within his body. His feet and hands were ice-cold, and he swayed from side to side, feeling for his strength. Then came the p.r.i.c.king of ten thousand tiny needles in his limbs. His heart beat as though it would burst its prison. His whole frame quivered. His bristles stood stiff-pointed from their roots. As the heart-throb slowed, his muscles slackened and obeyed his will, but yet he felt that something was amiss. Before him danced a yellow quivering haze, his feet were heavy and awkward, his chest ached as he breathed, and he was cold, oh, so cold! It was no easy matter to reach the nest-top. He climbed mechanically upwards, digging his toes into the meshwork of the sides, and sobbing from sheer weakness as he climbed.

He made a small parting in the roof, and peeped out. It was only for a moment, for he fell back stunned and blinded by the glare. Still, in that moment, he had caught a glimpse of an unfamiliar world, leafless, lifeless, silent, miserable. He tucked his nose between his four paws, swung his tail across his eyes, and waited patiently for the darkness.

With the darkness came the cold. It stole upon him gently, quelled the heart-throb, reclenched the tiny fists, and lulled him to forget.

It was better the next time. The old hazel was making coquettish efforts to renew its youth. It had hung its last remaining shoot with dancing catkins. Here and there lurked a crimson bud, ready to catch the floating pollen. On the sloping banks below were splotches of violet and primrose, and, over all, hung the green s.h.i.+mmer of spring.

To the dormouse's eyes the glare was, for the first few moments, as painful as before, but this time it was tempered with moisture. Great rain-drops swung on the swaying gra.s.s-stems and twinkled with a thousand prismatic colours. The slow drip of the woods resounded in his ears.

As his hearing sharpened, the old familiar sounds returned, the chirping of the t.i.tmice, the starling's discord, the sn.i.g.g.e.ring of the robin, the squirrel's bullying cough. How he had hated the squirrel--a midget incarnation of mischief, whose whole life was spent in practical joking.

How often had he heard that hateful cough shot into his ear, as My Lady Shadowtail whisked past him, a sinuous brown flash curling round the tree trunk! How often had he promptly dropped his hard-earned nut in consequence, only to see it seized by a field-mouse! How often had he swung at the end of a tapering twig, while the squirrel feinted at him with all four paws!

He looked up, and caught the squirrel's eye.

"What, awake?" she shouted. "It's not quite time for good little dormice.

You wait till it's dark, and see how cool it is. Why, even with my tail (and she bent it into a figure of eight to show its amplitude) it is hard enough to keep warm."

[Ill.u.s.tration: MY LADY SHADOWTAIL. MOTHER!]

"Chuc!"

The dormouse had felt it coming, and had discreetly retired. As it was, the better part of the roof caved in, the result of slight mistiming on the part of the squirrel.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," said the dormouse.

He was addressing vacancy, for the squirrel had in the mean time completed the circuit of three tree-tops. She was back again, however, in time to catch the next remark.

"Have you any nuts?" said the dormouse. "I feel most horribly hungry, and this light is very trying to my eyes. It will have to be darker before I can hunt for any myself."

"You'll be asleep two hours before it's dark," said the squirrel, "and I haven't any nuts, or rather, I haven't the least idea where I put them.

Didn't you make a store?"