  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— MISADVENTURES OF AN OWL 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 the heavens, with a round face that seemed to laugh good-humouredly, sailed the lady moon. As long as they had no children, they enjoyed these hours of contemplation like true artists who grudge to miss one note of harmony or one gleam of beauty; they would never stir till dawn, hardly troubling themselves even to go in search of food. But when the brood of youngsters arrived, they had perforce to forgo these ecstasies. The little beaks were for ever crying for more, and Goodman Owl, who was the best of parents, became a mighty hunter. Scarce was evening fallen ere he had taken post on the roof, heedless now of the mysterious splendours of the night, the furtive comings and goings of his prey occupying all his thoughts; the music of the spheres was henceforth confined for him to the rustling of the field-mice climbing the espaliers and the house-mice scuttling along the walls; still as a statue he stood there watching and picking out the fattest victim. Before the little creature had time to turn its head, he held it in his terrible jaws, and was flying off with his prey, panting in mortal terror, to his young ones, who instantly made a meal of it. The poor little mouse saw nothing, heard nothing. A soft, fanning sound from the night-bird’s velvety pinions was the only warning that anything untoward was near; but already the ravisher had seized his prey; there was a stifled squeal, and all was over! Every ten minutes—the same regular interval has been observed in all owls questing for food—he would bring fresh provender to the nest. The darkest night was no hindrance; his shining eyes, with their widely dilated pupils, pierced the blackest shadows as if they were transparent, and there was no hole or corner where the little night prowlers did not go in terror of their lives. Meanwhile the mother-bird was feeding her brood, sometimes when the mouse was particularly tough, tearing it piecemeal for her little ones to devour more easily. At other times father and mother together would guide the little family along the roofs, patiently teaching the inexperienced wings to fly, and giving a helping touch with beak or wing when they stumbled and tumbled in their attempts. At full moon they carried the youngsters to a neighbouring tree, he taking one, she another, and it was pretty to see their amazement when, craning their little necks, they watched the dim outlines of moving objects against the blue distance. But they were getting big now, and the old owl lectured them sagely, as his father had lectured him; he would tell them of the joys and sorrows of life, and advise them to marry. No, it was not callousness—far from it; he loved them tenderly, for by reason and instinct he was a pattern of all the domestic virtues. But he was a wise and far-seeing parent, who dreaded what their fate would be, should he and his mate one day meet the doom all owls are liable to. Perhaps one morning a yokel would climb to their hiding-hole and carry them off to kill them. True, the good CurÉ, whose house sheltered them, had forbidden their being molested; but he was an old man now, and nobody cared much what he said; then, with a ladder, it was so easy to reach the nest! The old owl always spoke like a philosopher; the future did not terrify him, and he seemed quite resigned to the cruel lot men mete out to his species. His words were without gall or bitterness; but a deep-seated melancholy gave them the gravity that ever marks creatures born to suffer. In younger days he had known rebellious thoughts, and the sense of human injustice had oppressed his spirit; he had even dreamt of flying his country for the lands the swallows in September told him of, and far away from cruel men, living in peace and quietness with the mate who had joined her life to his. But time had softened these resentments; he had bowed his head, recognising a higher power above him, and content to live on, harmless and obscure, asking only to repay good for evil. One morning the young birds deserted the nest. Then, alone once more, they resumed their former existence in the dark hollow of the old oak, so solitary and silent now; they bore their children’s departure as only another of nature’s inevitable necessities. They seldom stirred from home now, seeing hardly a soul except a couple of old friends sometimes on Sabbath days; as of old, they held long, long talks of nights with the moon. Perched side by side on the eaves, their dark shapes threw long black shadows across the roof; there they sat stiff and still, save when, from time to time, they spread their wings, swooped down on their prey, then resumed the same rigid attitude. These murderous assassins were at heart the most peaceable of good citizens. It was never their way, coming home at night, to wake the other birds asleep among the foliage; no one ever heard them quarrelling or shifting the furniture or pecking at the wall, as the cuckoos, linnets, and chaffinches are so fond of doing; only, six or eight times in the night, to advertise the country folk, they would cry To-hoo! to-hoo! if next day was going to be fine, and To-whit! if it was going to rain, at regular intervals, like talking barometers. A pair of young turtle-doves nesting on the next roof found this habit annoying, and went to the judge of the district to lodge a complaint. The judge was a very old raven, whom years had only made more sly and artful; he was said to be a hundred, and certainly his bald pate was as shiny as a polished stone. He lived in a crevice in the rocks, alone with his own thoughts. But these thoughts, unlike most old men’s, were full of mockery for all created beings. This feathered Methuselah had seen so much in his day! and experience had only taught him to laugh at griefs and joys and everything else. While appreciating his usefulness, he did not like Mr. Owl, and was not sorry to make things unpleasant for him; he could always dismiss the case in the end, after getting his fun out of it, if the turtles proved, as he half suspected, to have been in the wrong after all. Three blackbirds he employed as constables arrived at break of day at the owls’ front door and knocked. Three times they had to repeat the summons, so fast asleep was the worthy couple, till, roused at last, the latter poked out their heads in great alarm to ask what was wanted with them. Both looked so upset, he, poor fellow, in a nightcap, and she, good dame, in morning deshabille, that the blackbirds, who are always fond of a joke, burst into such a peal of laughter it took them ten minutes to recover their gravity. They laughed so heartily that the sparrows of the neighbourhood were attracted by the noise, and began to turn and wheel in flocks above the roof, while a horrid hubbub, a vile chirp! chirp! chirp! broke out, deafening and confusing the poor owls still more. The blackbirds, when they had done laughing, called for silence, which, however, it took some time to establish. Then they announced— “We, assistant officers of justice of this district, and by order of His Honour the Judge, do hereby summon you to appear this day before stroke of noon at his Court, situate, to wit, in the first crevice on the right hand, beginning from above, of the cliff bordering the Great Meadow.” This order was promulgated in shrill, nasal tones amid the rustling of the wings of all present, who, the instant the last word was uttered, began to amuse themselves by screaming in frantic delight. On the blackbirds departing, a number of sparrows lingered on to enjoy the confusion of the two owls. These had shrunk away into the deepest recess of their lair, terrified yet resigned, and their inquisitive tormentors heard none of the lamentations they expected. What black deed had been laid to their charge? The blackbirds had given no indication, and they began mentally to review their past, searching in vain for any crime they could be accused of. They had not robbed other people’s goods, nor slandered their neighbours; they had never, no, never caused any one’s death, while they had honestly and honourably performed the duties Nature had given them to do. What more could be asked of them? The Judge was waiting—they must be off. It was a woeful pilgrimage. The bright daylight dazzled them, and they went along blindly, running against everything and perpetually losing their way; twenty times over they lost their bearings and had to retrace their steps, covered with confusion, while their dusky plumage made a dirty-looking blotch in the fresh morning air. “This way!” cried some tomtits, flying ahead of them—and, taking their word, they blundered into a nest of yellowhammers, which luckily happened to be empty. “Don’t listen to them—come along with us,” the chaffinches advised them next—and they went crash! head first into a wall. A cloud of small birds followed behind. They were clawed and scratched, and half-dazed, as they wandered about like phantoms of the night masquerading at high noon. When at last, after a thousand tribulations, with eyeballs starting from their heads, battered and beaten and jeered at, they reached the Court, another swarm of tormentors was waiting to receive them. There were at least eight hundred, and every second others kept coming up, who, after flying wildly about in search of places, lighted here and there and everywhere, chattering and squabbling. The rock was soon so crowded from top to bottom that a linnet, who had been detained at home feeding her chicks, could not find a perch anywhere, and fluttered up and down the tumultuous ranks, beseeching the audience in vain to sit a little closer. The ladies especially seemed determined not to give up a single inch of room, and all vied together in raising a hubbub, shrieking and laughing and chattering as if they would never stop. “Accused,” ordered the raven suddenly, “stand up. Our Clerk of the Court will now read the statement of misdemeanours charged against you.” For a little while the uproar still continued, mingled now with sharp calls to order and appeals for silence; then, diminishing gradually, died away into the light rustle of many wings. Then a magpie was seen to rise briskly to his feet; his dark eye rolled roguishly, as he unfolded with his beak a huge sheet of paper scribbled all over with writing and read out in a dry, rasping voice— “We, Clerk of the Court, &c., &c., do hereby certify that the appellants, to wit M. Narcisse Tourtereau and his consort, Mme. Virginie Tourtereau or Colombelle, have duly appeared before us and deponed that the said appellants, cohabiting near by the messuage whereat the Owls, man and wife, have taken up their abode, are nightly awakened by the clamours, complaints, moans, groans, and quarrels of the aforesaid Owls, who, instead of sleeping in their beds during the interval of time falling betwixt sunset and sunrise, as do all the other birds, do choose these selfsame hours, that are customarily devoted to repose, for robbing and murdering and maliciously and mischievously disturbing their neighbours’ night’s rest by reason of unseemly and uncouth noises.—I have spoken.” The magpie flirted his tail four times in token of satisfaction at his own performance, snapped up a gnat to clear his throat, and, resuming his seat, devoted himself to an endless succession of smiles directed to the feminine portion of his audience. An approving murmur greeted the conclusion of the statement of accusation. Then, after a few moments of disorder, which was promptly checked, “Caw! caw!” went the raven, with a fine attempt at seriousness, his great round-eyed spectacles perched on his nose; then, turning to the owl, he lisped in an affected voice— “The word is with you; the Court will hear you in your own defence.” Never, never had the birds enjoyed so laughable a spectacle before, as they beheld the fowl of night step forward, looking oh! so awkward and uncouth, with such a heavy hang-dog air! His great eyes rolled in his head, he stumbled at every step, while behind his back grimaced his shadow, mimicking every movement of his neck as it jerked in and out, first short, then long, like the barrels of an opera-glass. A wild spasm of merriment seized the vast concourse at sight of the grotesque creature, and tomtits, linnets, birds of every sort and kind, broke into a frantic peal of mirth. “Silence in the Court!” shrieked the magpie. But laughter is infectious. Quickly it extended to the lower ledges of the rock, where the spectators sat half hidden from each other in the semi-darkness, and the mighty cliff shook as if lashed by a hurricane. The contagion caught even the magpie, the blackbirds, the Judge himself, who began to sneeze again and again, in the effort to recover his dignity. By fits and starts, the laughter would die down, only to burst out afresh with redoubled vigour, and it was long before the excitement subsided and heads ceased to wag. When at last the audience had recovered something like composure, even then fans could be seen here and there waving to hide behind their shield a last dying echo of hilarity. Meanwhile, the poor buffoon, the butt of all this scathing opprobrium, stood silent and uncomplaining, humbly waiting his chance to speak. Finally, when quiet was restored, he said— “I am aware, your Honour, that men and birds all hold me and mine in detestation. There is no villainy they do not impute to us, no crime they do not charge us with, and when we have the misfortune to show ourselves, the howl of hate rises as high about us as a tower. But are we criminals? Do we lurk in the woods to rob our fellow-birds by night or day? Do we plunder the granaries? Do we go thieving in the hedges? Do we ever interfere with the livelihood of any of God’s creatures with whom He has bidden us live in peace? Never, your Honour, never! All the day we lie quiet in our hole, loving our wives and children, and troubling nobody; then, when night is fallen, we win our nourishment by exterminating rats and mice, field-rats and field-mice. I would hurt no one’s feelings, but it is well to make comparisons sometimes, and I ask myself—Which fulfils the more useful function, he who from dawn to dark scours the orchards, stealing cherries, plums, and pears, so that the countryman, when winter comes, has but the half of the crop he hoped for, or he who, seconding the farmer’s toils with an incessant but unseen activity that wins no reward, secures him the proper reward of his pains?” Protests were heard at these words, the goldfinches and sparrows crying out indignantly— “Ah! he shifts the blame on us, the sly-boots! He knows he can say what he likes here, but outside the Court—why, he durst not so much as look us in the face.” “Oh! but, my good gentlemen,” retorted the orator quietly, “it is no fault of mine if I cannot look at you in the way you wish; a natural infirmity makes it impossible for us to see in daylight; such floods of light beat into the wide pupils of our eyes as would blind us if we had to face the sunshine long. That is the reason why you mocked at us just now, when you saw us disabled by this excess of light, whose rays pricked and pained our eyeballs like so many needles. Would you not feel yourselves at the same painful disadvantage if you were obliged to fly at night, when we owls come and go at our ease, our great pupils serving us as lamps to see by? You would very soon break your heads against a wall, let me tell you! “But let me come to the allegations that have brought me here, into the dock. Indeed, I have touched on them already; for is not the specific charge against us that we choose the night to come out of our holes and find our food? Why, what else could we do, when by daylight, by dint of seeing too much, we cease to see anything at all? Nature has given us the night, as she has given other birds the day, unwilling, in her kindly wisdom, to see the dark less useful than the light; she has appointed us her guardians to watch over the storehouses and orchards and granaries, which, above all in the night-time, become the prey of a host of pillagers. “They talk of robbery; why, what robbery can they reproach us with? Is it a malefactor’s work to purge the earth of the creatures that pick and steal, and, like unnatural cannibals, would bring their mother to her death, if we and some others, our colleagues in the same beneficent task, did not put a check on their never-ending mischiefs? Just think if we folded our arms and left them a free field; they would end by devouring the trees, along with the bit of ground where they grow, and the very folks who can never satiate their spite against us, finding themselves deprived of shady leaves and luscious fruits alike, would very soon come begging and beseeching us to return to our never-ending task. “Yet the owls, as your Honour knows, win neither respect nor profit from their irksome labours. They are not proud; you will never hear them bragging of the services they render; but modest, as becomes good workers to be, they roost quietly at home all the time they do not devote to the chase. Scorned by their brethren the birds, and persecuted by mankind, they are victims of consistent ingratitude from the very creatures they benefit; if I say this, it is to have the fact known once for all, not to protest against a state of things established for all time. We are therefore compelled to find in ourselves a happiness which society refuses us, and, living in solitude, we rear our little ones for a lot like our own. There is the head and front of our offending. “There is yet another grievance against us; we disturb, so they allege, our neighbours’ rest by our uproar. Surely the word is rather strong to apply to us who are lovers of silence, shunning noise in others as much as we avoid it in our own homes. If we make ourselves heard, it is not for the pleasure of listening to our own voices! We well know we are no sweet-voiced choristers, and when the nightingale sings, we have never dreamt of posing as his rivals. There are, so the migrants have told us, in the far-off cities of other lands, men who proclaim the hour from the tall minarets in the silence of the night. We do not announce the time—the cuckoo alone has this office to perform during daylight—but we instruct the swallows on the point of winging away, we inform the cricket, the bee, the ant, the ploughman, all to whom rain and sunshine are not matters of indifference, if they may count or not on a favourable morrow. So the kindly mother of man and beast has put two notes in our throats, deeming we needed no more, not to make us singing birds, but only birds of good help. “I have no more to say, for indeed we are no great talkers, and oratory is an art unknown to us. I will say no more, therefore, save only this—that if you are not satisfied with my pleas, I offer myself—and my companion here present will do the like—I offer myself a willing victim to your resentment, if so be the common good, which could not heretofore exist without our aid, is now only to be secured by the sacrifice of our lives.” Not a little surprised at his own eloquence, the bird of night stepped back to his place with tottering limbs. Thereupon the jays and yellowhammers began a hoot of derision, which was quickly drowned by the protests of the mother birds trembling for their young; and then the old raven, rising slowly to his feet, folded up his glasses, coughed, croaked, and, inspired apparently by the general sense of justice, summed up as follows— “You, Sir Owl, you have done wrong in crying out over loud; but you, young Turtle-dove, you have done a far graver wrong by haling an innocent prisoner to the bar. You therefore will pay the fine to which you would have had your neighbours condemned, and the costs of the trial to boot. Moreover, I will take this opportunity to do an act of justice, and extend a hand of brotherly affection to our honoured friend the owl, who is henceforth to be treated with proper consideration and respect, or I will know the reason why.” Little by little the audience dispersed, the swarm of birds scattered into space, and the raven’s rock was left to its former solitude. Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson & Co. |
|
