The Way of the Wild Part 10

Indeed, our thrush had a neighbor, a hedge-sparrow just newly arrived from "somewhere up north." It had come in after dark, and therefore had no time to feed. The thrush just took his head out from under his wing and opened one eye, as the poor little beggar perched close to him for company. He could see it plainly in the petrified moonlight.

When next he opened one eye and looked, dawn was at hand, and the poor little bird was still there. When at last, with shoulders humped and feathers puffed, our thrush flew down to feed in the first pale-gold glimmer of very-much-diluted sunlight, the hedge-sparrow did not move.

Now, in opening his wings, possibly from a vague idea of frightening the hedge-sparrow away from the magic swept circle on the lawn close by, and its bread, the thrush brushed heavily against that hedge-sparrow, so that--oh, horror!--it fell, or swung over backwards, rather, and hung head downwards, swaying slightly, like a toy acrobat on a wire, before it fell, so rigidly and so stiffly immovable that one expected it to shatter to pieces like gla.s.s as it hit the ground. It did not, however. But it did not matter. The hedge-sparrow was quite, quite dead before it fell, frozen stiff and stark in the night. And none of the other birds seemed to care. Why should they? Such a fate might overtake themselves.

The thrush, much tucked up, but still with some fight in him, was late.

Big flocks of peewits or green plover--he could see them between the spruce-boughs--had gone drifting by, winking like floating silver, high overhead, bound westward; and skylarks were pa.s.sing over the garden, one by one, heading southwest towards the warm, and chortling to each other as they went. Starlings--some of them with extraordinarily bright-yellow dagger-beaks, and some with dull beaks--were before him, squabbling and sparring over the bread on the lawn. A robin dropped a little chain of melancholy silvery notes, and a great t.i.tmouse bugled clearly, "Ting-ling! Ting-ling! Ting-ling!" Some one opened a window of the house giving on to the lawn, and the last house-fly blundered out into the cold air; and a company of gnats--surely the most hardy of insects--was dancing in the pale sunlight by the summer-house, _above the snow_.

The opening of the window had erupted the starlings into the surrounding trees, there to whistle and indulge in a "s.h.i.+veree," such as is dear to the heart of the excitable, social starling. And our thrush was standing motionless in the middle of the swept circle on the lawn almost at once. No one saw him go there. Indeed, unless the observer looked closely, no one saw him at all, for even then he was, unless he moved, difficult to see, and, whatever had been his custom before, in those days he moved but little.

He had come at even to a garden given over to hen-chaffinches--no c.o.c.ks, as we said--but at dawn, or, rather, his later hour for rising, he found the garden given over to song-thrushes, all pale beside him, all slim, all snaky of build--Continental song-thrushes, most like, and the same only come to those parts in very hard weather, for they come a long way.

Our song-thrush, standing on his one leg, looked at them with one shrewd eye. There were two of them in the snowless circle on the lawn, which had been swept clear of the snow, that was now deep, before he was up, and had also been replenished with bread. Two thrushes sat in the spruce-fir, and one on the top of the summer-house, and every jack of them was ravenous. He could expect no mercy from _them_. They must live, if they could, and there was not enough food for all. And he asked no mercy himself, either. Still, it was long odds.

Then he showed that he, even a bird, knew the laws of strategy, the essence of which is surprise. He surprised everybody by suddenly charging at the thrush on the lawn near him with a murderous ferocity that took one's breath away. It certainly would have taken away that of the other song-thrush, if our friend had not knocked it out of him by the impact. By all the laws of precedence, of course, any one of those others ought to have sent him, with his one leg, into headlong retreat by merely threatening. But our friend was not concerned with the laws of precedence, it seemed. He became a law unto himself, and a most amazing "character" to boot. Also, he fought like several demons, and, by sheer reckless fury, removed that dumbfounded rival of his from the lawn in twenty-one hectic seconds.

Then he fed--it was enough only to glance, just glance, at the other thrushes and the chaffinches, after that astounding exhibition of his character. He fed, and, after he had stuffed full, he stood still a little way off.

This was the signal for two of the thrushes in the spruce-fir to flap down to the bread. One got there. The other saw what was coming, and turned hastily back. The one that got there s.n.a.t.c.hed up a piece of bread. But he never ate it. Something hit him on the side. It felt like the point of a skewer, but it was our thrush's beak, really, and by the time he had recovered from that blow he found himself so busy saving his eyesight that he was glad enough to drop his bread and go.

That, however, was not enough for our thrush. He appeared to "see red," and with a terrible cruel, relentless "redness." He followed the retreating foe to the spruce-fir, flying heavily and awkwardly by reason of his smashed leg. He perched beside him on the branch he settled upon, nearly overbalancing, and perilously swaying and wobbling, with wings wildly flapping, and he drove that thrush to another branch, with such a rain of pecks that the feathers flew. Nor was even that enough. He followed up the attack, and hustled the thrush from that other branch, so that he flew down the snowed-up road.

Then our cripple, spinning in a whirl of snow, hurled himself upon the other thrush in the tree, and drove him out of it into the road.

But even that did not suffice him, for devils seemed to have possessed him, and the thought of opposition sent him crazy. He blundered into the privet-hedge, and unearthed a half-frozen _confrere_, who fled, squawking peevishly, leaving one tail-feather in our friend's beak; and finally he flew down to the road.

In the road, he first of all buried his face in snow, then fell on his side, deep snow not being, he discovered, an ideal medium in which to get about on one leg. During that performance his rivals could have abolished him five times over if they had had the heart to unite. But they seemed to think otherwise, and had not the heart for anything.

They sat still, with that helpless abandon that afflicts fowls and other birds in disaster, and they seemed about to starve practically on the spot, if left alone.

Our thrush, however, did not leave them alone. They were a direct threat to his only line of communication with life, so to speak--namely, food. Wherefore, either they or he must go. Soon he found that cart-ruts make convenient roads for the birds in the snow, or perhaps it was the chaffinches, who were following one another in lines along the cart-ruts, who showed him.

Then and there, in the road, our thrush seemed to go berserk. He landed upon the thrush nearest to him, spread-eagled and hammering like a feathered devil. There was a whirl of brown feathers and finely powdered snow for about ten seconds, at the end of which time that other thrush detached himself and fled, oven as his conqueror hurled himself upon the next bird.

There were two here, side by side, but neither was quick enough to parry our friend's lightning lunges, after he had beaten down their guard with his wings; and they, too, got up and winged into the leaden, frowning sky. The others did not wait. They had seen all they wanted to, apparently, and would take no part in the play. They faded out among the drifting snowflakes, over the still, white fields, and our thrush was left to the lawn, and the bread, and the swarming chaffinches, whom he easily kept aloof, and--yes, there was no getting away from it--the one thrush on the summer-house who, you will note, had never moved. But when he looked he found that thrush was not on the summer-house, but on the lawn, eating bread; and when he flew down to the lawn to investigate--he flew and landed very clumsily--he made a discovery that seemed to surprise him; or did he already know it?

Anyway, the thrush on the lawn was a lady, and--well, what would you?

The cripple balanced as well as he could, and looked foolish. It was all he could do.

The day pa.s.sed swiftly, and faded out in blinding snow. Most of the time the cripple stood motionless, watching his companion and guarding his swept circle, and, as often as he could, he fed. And neither then nor at any other time, except once when the gardener nearly trod upon him before he would move, did he utter a sound. The last glimmer of day showed him still at his post, motionless, all but invisible. But he roosted, as a matter of fact, in the privet-hedge, on the south side of the summer-house, and this time he was not alone.

The day had been trying enough, with its fights and its three cats, which pa.s.sed within reach of him, and could have slain him--for his injuries made him slow to get under way--if they had not failed to see him, because so still. The night, however, was a clouded terror.

Certainly he went to bed--if one may so call it--full, if not warm exactly; but that was the only advantage. It snowed with ghastly, relentless steadiness, and it blew like the hacking of sharp knives.

But through it all, because full fed, the cripple, with all his handicap, and his lady companion lived; lived to see the hard dawn pale tardily; lived to watch the kind gardener--under strict orders a.s.suredly, or he would never have done it--sweep a s.p.a.ce clear on the lawn and spread food for the birds; lived to ruffle his feathers and fly down; and lived to see the thaw which came that afternoon, when the warm sou'-wester came romping over the land, and winter's last stand was overcome by the forces of spring, and all the wild breathed a sigh of relief and went abroad gayly to feed.

But the cripple lived to see other things. For there came a day, about a week later, when our cripple, who had been "keeping company" all the time with his lady friend, heard the whole dawn awaken to a sudden mighty chorus of thrush song. I don't know why they all chose to burst into song thus as at a given signal, but they did, and the effect upon the cripple and his companion was curious. He had just landed upon the top of the summer-house on his one leg, in a particularly awkward and unbalanced manner, and he perched, listening, as if rooted to the spot, and with something nearly approaching horror in his eyes, it seemed to me.

The female bird listened, too, for about a minute, and then, ignoring the poor cripple as if he had never existed, hopped towards the spruce-fir--atop of which a particularly fine and strong-voiced songster was warbling--as if she were drawn by ropes. And--oh, horror!--the songster came down to _her_.

The cripple never uttered a sound, not a song, or a call, or a sign.

He hurled himself straight at this new rival like a bolt shot from a crossbow, and he fought. My word, how he fought! But this new antagonist was no half-frozen, half-starved Continental song thrush.

He was a Britisher, thick-set, bullet-headed, thick-necked, who had wintered, perhaps, in the south of Ireland or farther, and he fought like a Trojan.

All up and down the lawn the fight raged, and in and out of the hedges, into the mountain ash and out again, down to the ground and up again; but in the end--ah, but it could have only one end!--the Britisher was on the top of the summer-house, literally shouting his song of triumph.

And the cripple was on the ground at the foot of the hedge, beneath the spruce-fir, lying on his side, blood-stained and panting. n.o.body saw him creep away. n.o.body cared--certainly not his lady acquaintance, who was too busy receiving glad eyes from the conqueror.

Also, n.o.body saw him die. Yet next morning he was dead, stiff and still on the ground beside the summer-house. Some think that it was the injuries he received in his last great fight that killed him. I do not. I could find no wounds upon him sufficiently severe to sustain that theory. I think he died of a broken heart. Don't you?

VII

"SET A THIEF"----

Cob arrived in a snowstorm of unparalleled ferocity. He came upon extended vans sixty-nine inches from tip to tip, which he seemed as if he were never going to flap. All black above, all white below, he was.

The fact was worth noting, because, as seen from below, he looked neither black nor any other hue, but just indiscriminate dark, unless he swerved against the little light, and then his white "hull" shone like silver.

In his calm tacking, in his effortless play, in his superb mastery of the furious gale, one realized that here was one of Nature's masterpieces. He arrested the gaze with his serenity, and in his majesty of flight marked himself as a bird apart.

Here was a bird accustomed to power, to respect, and to wield fear, as a king might do; but he was no king, even among birds. He was a great black-backed gull, immense, austere, and cruel, with eyes as cold as the waves whose glitter they reflected, and a heart as implacable as the storm that cherished it; sea-rover, pillager, pirate, swashbuckler, son of the storm in whose fierce buffetings he rejoiced, master of the gale upon whose fury he flourished--the very spirit of the ocean's frontiers, arrayed in the spotless uniform of the sea, sailing under her bold colors.

And then, as he suddenly came, the watcher, had there been one, would have looked at him expectantly, for an eagle, bristling with weapons, so to speak, fierce-eyed, mighty, and scowling, came flapping heavily across the white-fretted bay. There is expression in birds, and most have their feelings and their character stamped upon their whole body.

But there was no expression in Cob. His cold eyes continued to stare with steady stoniness, his vast vans to waft an occasional shallow, lazy quarter-flap, his spotless head to peer down at times. Once only, as the real king of the birds, on his course, drew very near, so that you could hear the deep, dry "hough! hough!" of the powerful wings, did Cob open his red-stained--as it were blood--yellow beak, and give utterance--one could call it no more--and so instantly close his beak again and revert to his absolute expressionlessness that one had a job to realize what, or who, in all that vast scene, had spoken.

"I'm-Great-Black-Back!" he said very quietly, quickly, gratingly, and tersely; and then, as if expecting an answer, added, "Eh?" in a hollow undertone.

The eagle's imperial head jerked round as he flew, and he shot a stabbing, sheathed glance at the great sea-bird, as a king might at a man in a crowd who begins to fumble at his hip-pocket. But, save for that, he took no further notice, and beat on with his terrific, piston-like, regular wing-beats; and the gull, that speckless, dazzling, hardened, hard giant, laughed--laughed, I say, softly and to himself, hoa.r.s.ely and insolently: "How-how-how-how!" It was as if he laughed in derision.

And then a strange thing happened. From the opposite stupendous cliffs, draped in snow, bejeweled with icicles, frowning and desolate, an ominous black shape flung itself furiously, and made straight for the eagle, barking hoa.r.s.ely with rage as it came. Another hollow bark followed, and a second evil ebony form hurled down from the tottering cliff-top, and flapped towards the eagle in the path of the first.

Bark echoed bark above the deep mutter of the breakers, and the echoes along the cliffs answered both uncannily and mockingly.

They were a raven, disturbed from her wool-quilted nest, and her mate; but if they had been hobgoblins straight from an evil dream, they could not, in that immense, grim setting, have been much more impressive.

The great black-backed gull said no more, but wheeled on as if nothing had happened.

The eagle said nothing, and tried to beat on as if nothing had happened, too. He did not succeed, for the ravens who had been addressing him most particularly soon addressed themselves personally to him; and before he knew just how it all came about, they had summoned a quite amazing and unexpected aerial acrobatic power, and were shooting and diving, striking and flapping, about his regal head in a manner that even _he_ could not pretend any longer to ignore. No one, not even a king of all the birds, feels comfortable under the imminent possibility of losing an eye--and such a haughty, wonderful eye, too. Nor did the eagle. And he showed it. One presumes he might have abolished the pair--one or both--but the eagle never let on what he presumed. What he _knew_ was that he had nothing to gain in a fight with such super-hooligans, and everything to lose, for one wound only might mean a dead eagle _via_ starvation and a dead raven--what was a dead raven worth, anyway, to him, or anybody else?

Therefore the eagle changed his mind about continuing his course, which would have taken him above the ravens' nest. He did it grandly, and without giving the impression that the ravens had anything to do with it--he could have squeezed the life out of them with one awful handshake, if his heart had been as big as his claws. But they had something to do with it. And they knew it. So did Cob, who laughed again, hoa.r.s.ely and as one appreciating a joke, while he wheeled and wheeled over the following waves, seeing all things and never appearing to see anything.

Then at last, when the king of all the birds had sunk, like a speck of floating burnt paper, away over the far, white-mantled hills, the ravens suddenly evaporated into nowhere. Probably no one had seen them go except Cob, and Cob was by now a lonely, dwindling speck away over the restless ocean. Then he was not. He was coming back, swinging along with great, easy, shallow half-flaps, so sublimely lazy that he seemed merely to swim through the gale. But he covered distance; there was speed as well as majesty in his flight, for all that.

In a very short time he was above the cliffs, silent, sinister, almost stealthy. One of the ravens came back suddenly, diving over the crest, half-demented with anxiety to cover her eggs from that stony stare of the sea-rover; and Cob, seeing where she had come from, surrendered himself to the gale, hurtled down-wind, veered, tacked, circled, rocking, and came down in a series of his oblique plunges--smack-bang into the middle of a gory dinner-party, consisting of the male raven, five gray or hooded crows, and one silver herring-gull, feasting upon the carca.s.s of a dead sheep.

Every head went up, every eye blinked, every wing half-opened, every beak shut tight as Cob, whom everybody had thought to be miles away by that time, threw forward his wings, umbrella-fas.h.i.+on, flung them up, hat-fas.h.i.+on, fanning wide his tail, dropped his giant webbed feet, and came to anchor with a rush. Then he folded those wonderful pinions of his, foot by rustling foot, stared stonily at the amazed, mute company around him, and, throwing back his immaculate, smooth, low-browed, spotless head, laughed to the winds, hoa.r.s.ely, loudly, wildly--a rude, baleful, transport of mirth:

"How-how-how-how-how!"

The raven did not laugh. He had to feed his sitting wife--not counting his big self--in that bitter weather, and he was pluming himself upon having turned the eagle from sight of this gift banquet from Providence as well as his nest. The gray crows saw no cause for merriment, remembering how big the great gull was, and how small are these little, long-wooled, black-faced hill sheep. Moreover, sheep do not often oblige by getting turned turtle in a cleft of rock, and being unable to right themselves before poor, starving, wild hunters--I won't swear who, but it was not the raven _this_ time--can come and peck their eyes out.

Cob looked at them again--all five of the gray crows sitting staring straight down their own black gouge-beaks, hunched, cold, out-at-heels, and dejected. Then he laughed again--burst into another wild, jeering fit of merriment, and fell to work.