Birds and Beasts :: The Captive Goldfinch I

The Captive Goldfinch I

Once upon a time, far away in the depths of a great orchard, there lived a goldfinch. He was born in the spring, amid the fragrance of the fresh leaves, and there was not a prettier, sweeter little fellow to be found in any of the nests round about. His mother longed to keep him near her always, she loved him so dearly; but then, there is nothing so tempting as a pair of wings, and once July was come, the month of daring flights and dashing enterprises, light and agile as only young birds are, he left the maternal nest in search of distant adventures.

Oh! but it is enough to turn any goldfinch’s head, this flying free over the blue expanse of the skies! Hardly had he passed the limits of the orchard where he was born ere he clean forgot all about his fond mother, her warm breast, and her dark eye so full of tender solicitude.

A sort of frenzy seized him. Thinking the leaves were as eternal as the springtide, he boldly took his flight, and away across the sky; soaring ever higher and higher, he rose into the heat and glory of the sun, into the regions where the larks sing and the swallows dart, where all the wild wings make a sound as of a mighty fan opening and shutting.

Wonder of wonders! now the earth below him looked round and shining like a ball of flowers floating in an enveloping cloud of gold-dust; and bathed in splendour, he saw the sun rise and set in the glory of limitless horizons.

Oh! what glorious flights he had in the blue depths of the clouds! what games of hide-and-seek among the flickering leaves, what cries and songs and dartings after gnats, and all the delights known only to the little winged souls we call birds!

The nightingales lulled him to sleep with the melody of their concerts, the cock woke him with the shrill clarion-call of his crowing; all the day long he flitted and flew amid the endless twittering and warbling of linnets, tomtits, bullfinches, sparrows, and chaffinches, taking his part too in the orchestra, and near bursting his little throat to produce his finest notes, with that vanity that makes us one, and believe Nature has implanted in us the soul of an artist—a great, mysterious, unappreciated artist.

II

But the summer passed into autumn, and drenching rains succeeded the sunny days; the poor goldfinch had to perch of nights in rain-soaked trees, where he had to sit cold and shivering, feeling his feathers getting wet and draggled one by one. Furious winds tore away the leaves, and lo! one morning when he opened his eyes, he saw a new and strange world—the ground was covered with snow, and far as sight could reach were only white roofs, white hedges, and white trees. Winter was come!

Then oh! how bitterly he regretted his mother’s warm breast! How gladly would he have given the joys of the past summer to find himself once more pressed close to her side and feel her heart beating against his in the cosy nest! But all summer the wind had been busy confusing the pathways of the air, so that it was now impossible to discover the one that should have led him back to the nest; nay, a more blighting wind than all the rest blew out of the skies; the wind of forgetfulness had breathed upon his spirit, carrying away the memory of that happy road—the first that young folks forget. And now winter grew fierce and fell, devastating the orchards, bombarding the cottages with hailstones, driving hope from all breasts and killing the little birds in the nests—the young birds that are the hope of the verdant springtide and happy days to come.

The little goldfinch was quite sure this horror would never end, that the trees would never grow green again, that never more would the harvest clothe the fields in green, that gaiety, sunshine, and youth were vanished away for good and all.

Cowering in the hollow of an old branch, he watched the days go by like a procession of white phantoms, each uglier than the other, and his little feet all stiff with cold, his feathers frozen together with hoar-frost, sad and shivering, he thought many and many a time his last hour was come.

In vain the old birds told him of a re-birth; he could not believe in the resurrection of things when this dreary time of mourning should be over.

III

Little by little, however, the snowstorms grew rarer, stray sunbeams pierced the murkiness of the heavens, and a verdant down, at first light as a vapour, but which presently grew denser and soon took on the solidity and sheen of satin, hemmed round the sombre garment of the fields. A mildness filled the air—something restful, calm, and kindly, that was like a benediction, something the winds distilled, the sun diffused, the growing grass and humming insects and fragrant violets spread abroad, something which, like a river fed by a myriad rippling rills, gushed forth along the torrent-bed of creation.

A door seemed to open in the sooty firmament of winter, and this portal, rolling back on golden hinges, suddenly revealed the sun in his splendour, like a king stepping forth to bring peace to the peoples. Then sounded the first chord in the plain-song of the woods; waters, sky, and earth joined in the harmony with a deep, long-drawn note that rose and swelled, sobbed and sighed, grew louder and louder, assumed the majestic breadth of an orchestral symphony, and waxing gradually, ended by filling the depths and heights of air with a mighty diapason, as if all mouths, all voices, all breaths were raised together in one vast unison.

I leave you to guess if the goldfinch lifted up his voice in this universal hymn of praise!

So it was true, then! The sun had indeed returned! A fine lacework of filmy greenery began to clothe the tree boles, and the water-springs to sparkle in the shy recesses of the forest; the air was free; once more he and his comrades could laugh and sing, flit idly to and fro, pilfer and steal, plunder the orchards, peck the flowers, drink in from a drop of dew intoxication to last the livelong day, and revel in that twice-blessed existence that is full of a fine frenzy of delight to make the thrushes envious.

Good-bye to the winter covert, the crevice in the protecting bough, the moss that still keeps the impress of his little body! Nothing will satisfy him now but the wild fields of space; and with a bold sweep of wing the masterful goldfinch has left his dolorous refuge, never to return. A second piece of ingratitude, another act of forgetfulness! Yes, it must be allowed a little bird’s head has small room in it for remembrance.

IV

Good times began again. White and pink, the orchards blossomed like bridal bouquets. It snowed butterflies’ wings and flower stamens in the tall grass; lilacs hung in clusters over the walls; like a good priest saying mass, the earth donned a golden cope, and all Nature trembled and loved.

Then was the time for our pretty bird to abandon himself to endless idle wanderings and loiterings, hopping hither and thither, always on one leg, barely lighting and then off again, shaking the leaves with an incessant flutter of wings, twittering and chirping, flirting with the daisies, ruffling the hawthorn, hooting the holly. At peep of dawn he never failed, when the harebells rang their morning summons, to come down to attend the good God’s church whither the flies and sparrows assemble, still half asleep and blundering against the pillars; next the beetles get under way along the roads, teased and tormented by the butterflies and ladybirds; then the linnet leaves her bough and flies off to where the bells tinkle, but of a sudden darts back again, finding she has left something behind, lost something—more often than not her head—for the poor lady generally wears it wrong side before! Thither fly the chaffinches too, and the grave-faced oriole, the pretty bullfinch, and the chattering cock-sparrow. Then the cockchafers come, too, too often, alas! trailing after them the thread of captivity clinging to them—the burly cockchafers that, with the bumble-bee, are the bass voices of the underwoods. Plain and woodland are all alive, for there is never a creature at this fair hour of daybreak, while the skies are brightening, but is eager to come and make its orison to God in His temple.

So the little goldfinch followed their example; he preened his feathers, looking at himself admiringly in a dewdrop the while. Then, his toilet done, like all the rest of the world, he bustled off to his business and his pleasures.

V

Goldfinches’ hearts are made much the same as men’s; the spring awakes both to thoughts of love.

Our hero had remarked in his neighbourhood a sweet little hen-goldfinch. She lived with her parents in the tall branches of an apple-tree; more than once, coming home at evening, he had admired the fascinating smile of her beak at the window, embowered in foliage, where she sat watching for his going-by.

Was it his fancy? Was it really and truly a modest blush, or only the rosy reflection cast by the setting sun? Yes, sure—he had seen her redden. It needed no more to decide him to ask her hand in marriage.

One morning he made his bravest toilet, scented himself with lavender and thyme, polished up his little claws, and in this gallant array he set out, with a shining face but an anxious heart, to see the parents. They received him politely, but could not make up their minds, and begged him to come again.

He came again and again, and the more he saw of his little sweetheart, the deeper he fell in love. She was as pretty as seven in her little brown mantle with yellow facings, and her dainty head in its red hood was poised on her neck with an incomparable grace. Saucy and alert, she was as slight and slim as a flower waving in the breeze, as bright as a sunbeam piercing through the leaves, as agile as the wind. Dewdrops seemed to sparkle in the depths of her little round pupils. She was a vision of the spring-tide made into a bird!

True, our hero was no less brave to see. Gallant and gay, he cocked his beak boldly and carried the colours of his race with becoming pride.

At last the wedding-day was fixed; but the bride’s trousseau was still to seek. No doubt birds are able to start housekeeping at small cost, neither needing tables and chairs nor pots and pans; still, there must be some little fitting-out to be done.

And so thought the bride’s parents, who were prudent people, and loved their daughter.

A fine to-do there was, to be sure, on the bough where the old couple had their home; a stir that never ceased all day long kept the green hangings of the house shaking, and the doors banging; everlasting comings and goings turned the stairways upside down. Pale and eager-eyed, the little hen-goldfinch awaited the happy hour when she could fly away with her mate.

VI

Soon the news of the betrothal spread amongst the neighbours. The nearest trees were all agog; nothing was to be heard but twitterings and whisperings, not to mention backbitings, for envy is to be found everywhere in this world. The tomtits above all took a delight in saying evil of the bride, calling her a silly, insipid little thing; they chirped and chattered, whistled and whispered, pecking and pulling to pieces the poor innocent child’s good name. In vain the bullfinches, good, decent bodies, tried to interfere: the tomtits’ cackle quite drowned their grave remonstrances. The critics had enlisted a naughty grisette, a chaffinch, a minx who had kicked over the traces in her day, and was renowned for her spiteful tongue; a blackbird too had joined the conspiracy, and now, perched all together on a high branch, from which they could spy upon the comings and goings of the goldfinch household, they kept up a famous uproar.

The Master of Ceremonies of the birds’ parish arrived in the afternoon; he had come to inquire the hour at which the young folks were to be married, and if they wanted choristers to attend. It was agreed to engage a lark and a chaffinch; nightingales were too expensive. A pretty carpet of green would be laid down, as green as on the finest summer’s day; the porch was to be decorated with anemones, and the chancel with daisies; the sun would be ordered for five o’clock, to make a grand show of purple and gold. Of course the drones would be at the organ, and they would ask the wind to give them a helping hand by roaring in the pipes. The harebells would strike up a merry peal at peep of day, and ring till the bridal pair arrived. The holy-water stoup would be filled with dew. As for incense, the violets would see the censers were well filled, and the bees would keep them swinging all through the ceremony.

I forgot to tell you that a wedding breakfast had been ordered, at which, besides flies and worms galore, they were to regale themselves on a cricket and a locust—a magnificent spread indeed. The nearest spring would supply the wine; they were to have corn-berries for dessert, and the table would be laid in the thickest of an apple-tree in full blossom, where a cloud of gnats was always buzzing and making beautiful music. A yellowhammer was invited; he was a rollicking blade, and there was nobody to match him at singing a comic song.

All was going as well as could be; yet how long seemed the hours of waiting to the little bridegroom! To and fro he flitted, up and down the roads he sauntered, trying to cheat his impatience by incessant movement; presently he would light on a bough and fall a-dreaming, while his little heart beat fast and furiously.

Every minute he kept glancing up at the great dial God has set in the sky, and which only the birds can read; but the sunbeam which is the hand of this aerial clock would not move fast enough for his impatience. He could only bewail his lot, and force himself to drop asleep to kill the lagging time. He even went to see the village clockmaker, an old cuckoo, a greybeard bird with a nid-nodding head, who all day long used to strike the hours with exasperating punctuality, and besought him to quicken up the evening a bit.

But the cuckoo shook his head.

“Little madcap,” he told him, “am I to put out all the folk of the countryside for you? Don’t you know everything goes on by rule and regulation among your neighbours, and that each hour brings its own tasks? Why, whatever would they think if I rang vespers before the great timepiece of the heavens had indicated the time of twilight? What would the mole say if I brought him out of his underground house, looking black as a collier, before nightfall, and if suddenly the sun dazzled him with its light—poor purblind fellow who had never in his life dared look at anything but the moon?”

So, the cuckoo having shown him the door, he wandered off again, flitting from hedgerow to hedgerow, burning with impatience.

VII

A heap of little white grubs lay under the hedge of an orchard. More for lack of anything else to do than because he was hungry, the goldfinch flew up and fell upon it.

Ah! have a care, pretty birdie. A man was busy thereabouts just now.

But, alas, it is too late; a whole life of happiness is ruined by a moment’s curiosity. Hardly had the poor fellow plunged his beak in the mass when a string pulled the catch; down comes the trap, and he is a prisoner. Then the shape crouching behind a tree comes out from its hiding-place; it approaches, looms larger and larger, turns into a big bearded man, who opens enormous great hands, seizes the poor bird, and claps it in a cage, grinning a broad grin of satisfaction. Good-bye, little bride! Good-bye, marriage-feast and wedding-march! Good-bye, woods and orchards, gardens and flowers! Good-bye, twittering nests! Good-bye, life and love!

Consternation nailed our little hero to the spot; something had befallen him he could make nothing of; he gazed at the cage with haggard eyes, too scared to think.

Ah! if only he had lost his memory! But this consolation was denied him. He shook himself, dashed at the bars, pecked and bit at them, thinking maybe they would open and leave him free as air again.

But no; the bars would not give way.

Then he shuddered from head to foot. Anger and terror frenzied his little brain. He flew wildly at the bars; but all in vain—the cage was solid and strong.

Suddenly he realised his calamity, and, filled with a perfect frenzy of despair, with panting breath and trembling, shuddering limbs, he hurled himself at the bars, beat his head against the wires, tearing and lacerating beak and claws, flew madly up and down, breaking his wings, till, battered and bruised, his feathers all dripping with blood, exhausted and out of breath, he rolled half-dead into a corner.

It was all over!

While joy was paramount yonder in his bride’s home, while song and laughter were the order of the day, while preparations for the wedding—bitter mockery!—were completing, and all things, leaves and butterflies and nests, were a-flutter, the poor bridegroom lay in his agony amid the silence of a prison.

VIII

Evening lit up the sky with its gleaming tints of copper; little by little the chattering family groups fell silent, and the darkling trees assumed the look of long-drawn, solemn colonnades. Alas! it was not under this familiar aspect that night fell for our captive goldfinch. A dirty whitewashed wall, on which hung strangely shaped objects, replaced the sable curtain spangled with stars that twilight spreads over the countryside. A guttering, flaring candle smoked on the table, bearing how faint a resemblance to the silver moon! and by its sordid light the hard-hearted wretch who had robbed him of his liberty was moving to and fro.

Ah! what right had he, this miserable birdcatcher, this highway robber, to tear him from the free air, the hedgerows and the green fields? Tiny though he be, is the bird therefore of no import to the leaves, the winds, the trees, which without him would be voiceless? Has the blue sky no need of his outspread wings, his echoing song, the flutter of his plumage?

What use the pool glittering in the woodland, if he was not there to dip his beak in it and absorb in a drop of water the red of dawn, the gold of noon, the deep shadow of the quivering leaves? Is not a little bird the less a disaster in the forests and orchard-closes, a voice silenced in the symphony of nature, a furrow left barren in the fields of space, a bright point vanished from the azure sky? Is not the universe disturbed for the loss of a little creature wherein all nature is summed up and glorified?

The man blew out the taper, and a moonbeam shot in at the garret-window and fell on the poor captive.

It formed, as it were, a luminous rail on which his thoughts glided; and they always travelled in one direction—to his little fiancÉe, who at that moment, softly cradled by the night wind, was fast asleep and dreaming of the great to-morrow.

The moon paled and daylight appeared.

Yonder no doubt all was ready; the harebells were ringing their peal, the drones were organing their deep music, while the trembling bride, white as the lilies, was asking herself why her bridegroom did not come.

The cuckoo clanged out the hour of dawn. One and all were ready for the fÊte; only his arrival was waited for.

The hours slipped by without his appearing, and little by little the murmuring and muttering, low at first, grew louder and louder, and rose into a perfect tempest of cries and jeers and gibes. The chaffinches were jubilant, the parents disconsolate. And what of her, the poor, despairing bride? Her pretty innocent eyes could not bear the light of day; stricken to the heart by this unaccountable desertion, she was borne away fainting, half dead with shame and sorrow.

IX

Dark days followed. At first only a prisoner, his cruel master now made him into a galley-slave. He put a chain round his foot, and condemned him to the servitude of the car and cord. So drag your weight, work your pulley, haul in your little car, poor outcast! Who has not seen the monstrous spectacle—one of God’s creatures, created to fly free in the realms of air, coming and going on a toy platform, a ring about its leg? Who has not seen the unhappy captive, to win meat and drink, drawing up by little laborious jerks the water-jar and car, its eye gleaming with pitiful longing, gaining its subsistence by a never-ending useless martyrdom? Only he who has seen the cruel sight knows to what lengths the cruelty of bad men can go.

This was the fate of the poor goldfinch.

The man had given him a cage to imitate a Swiss chÂlet, in front of which was a little terrace. On the terrace was fixed a post, with a pulley attached worked by a thread. This thread the captive had to pull in with his beak, little by little, till the little drinking-bucket hooked to the other end rose to the level of the platform; then putting his foot on the cord, he had to hold it in place and so drink a drop, bitter as a tear, hurriedly and fearfully, lest the thread should slip from under his claw and suddenly let the bucket run down again.

More often than not the bucket upset in its descent, and then he had to go without water for the rest of the day.

A second thread made it possible for him to haul to the edge of the platform a miniature car running on an inclined plane outside the cage; this held his bird-seed. What a struggle it was to drag it up! At each snap of the beak the car would ascend, but oh! so slowly. By successive jerks, never tiring, never stopping, with straining neck, working with the adroitness of a galley-slave, and clapping his foot on the cord after each pull, he had to drag up the accursed car, which would sometimes elude him and dash down the incline again, spilling the seed and mocking all his laborious efforts!

A hundred times a day he was forced to begin the horrid task again.

Many a time the goldfinch resolved to give in and die of hunger; but hunger is a terrible thing, and no sooner did its pangs begin to pinch his little stomach than he would seize the cord afresh and pull for dear life.

X

So passed the hours for the once happy bridegroom. Never a chirp now, never a flirt of the tail! Disconsolate and draggled, every feather of his little body betraying the misery of his broken life, he seemed an embodiment of the bitter protest of the winged creation against the cruelty of man.

A feeble ray of sunshine used to flicker on the garret walls towards midday; he would watch for it, and when it came at last, shooting a slender pencil of gold, in which the dust-motes danced athwart the gloom of his prison-house, it was like a brief instant of recovered freedom; for a moment he forgot his chain, his car, his slavery, and away he flew in fancy to the great orchards that showed their black masses of shadow on the horizon. Alas! the sunbeam slid along the wall and disappeared, and the appalling reality came home to him again.

What had he done to deserve this cruel fate? To filch a grain of corn here and there, to forage in the kitchen-gardens, to play the truant, to make the most of life, all day long to fly hither and thither, the free denizen of air—was this a crime? He never reflected how he had forgotten his mother, and that this crime alone deserved the sternest expiation.

His master was one of those good-for-nothing workmen who make the whole week a series of Sundays. One night he forgot to come home at all; next morning the ill-starred captive found bucket and car both empty. No use hauling them up to him and pecking about in every corner; never a grain of seed was to be found, never a drop of water! Then indeed he knew the torments of hunger and thirst. In vain he toiled at his cruel, slavish task; the car ascended, the bucket rose, but without bringing solace to his famished cravings. His tools refused their office; with pale eyes of consternation the poor prisoner gazed at them, and could not understand.

As if by the irony of fate, the window had been left wide open, and he could plainly see the green of the nearest trees, in which the birds, his more fortunate brethren, were squabbling. He saw the sun slowly sink and the shadows of the house-roofs lengthen. Then a frenzy of madness seized him; with quick, frantic pecks he tore at the chain riveted round his leg, and by sheer fury burst its rings.

To dart to the window, to sail away for the paling blue of the sky, was the work of an instant; but next minute he fell to earth again, so weak was he with hunger. Luckily, not far from the foot of the tree where he had dropped, a flock of pigeons was enjoying a feast of oats at the door of a stable. He joined the band, and in a very short while had plumped his crop to such good purpose that he felt his full strength come back to him.

A long time had passed since he had quitted his bonny bride, and he trembled to think what changes the days might have brought with them in her life. Still the longing to see her again grew so irresistible after he had been free an hour that, even if she had forgotten him, he was fain to bid her farewell.

And pr-r-r-rt! he was off like the wind.

All the world was asleep when he arrived—even the tomtits, those inveterate gossips, who love to loiter at their doors long after dark, talking scandal of their neighbours.

“Little bride! little bride!” he breathed softly.

A yellowhammer answered him in a cross voice—

“Third tree to the left in the next orchard!”

Why, actually the goldfinches had removed! He hurried to the tree indicated, and once again, “Little bride!” he whispered.

A faint cry answered, and next moment his sweetheart appeared.

“I was waiting for you,” she cried.

Ah! these were happy moments that made up for all their sufferings. He told her all his adventures; she told him how her faith in him had never faltered. They woke the parents, who warmly welcomed the returned prodigal.

“Just think,” said the mother, “those odious chaffinches positively forced us to leave the neighbourhood. Life was become unbearable; morning, noon, and night it was nothing but insulting remarks. But now you are come back again! So these spiteful folks will be finely confounded.”

Another old hen-goldfinch was there, who was gazing at him with wet eyes and wings all a-tremble.

“Ah!” cried our hero, “why, it is mamma, my poor mother I had forgotten so long!”

Yes, it was his mother indeed: his little bride, after his disappearance, had never wearied till she found her, telling herself that, with her for company, there would be two of them to wait for his return.

Their happiness was complete.

Two days after, but soberly this time, without drum or trumpet, the wedding was solemnised.

The story has its moral, as every story should. It was the goldfinch’s father-in-law who undertook to draw it for his young friend’s benefit.

“Son-in-law,” he said, “I hope you will teach your little ones two lessons. The first is—never forget your mother; the second—beware of traps in the hedgerows.”

STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A LITTLE WHITE RABBIT

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