Featherland Part 4

OGREBONES.

Away went the wagtail--flit-flit-flit--down to the pond where the water-lilies grew, and began running about over them to catch the gnats that were dancing over the gla.s.sy water; and there again he had a fright, for he saw close to his feet, by the edge of a large leaf, a green nose, just the shape of the toad's. However, he had presence of mind to say, "Who are you?"

"Croak," said the green nose, and dived under the water; and then the wagtail saw that it was a light-green thing, with longer legs than the toad, and that it swam to the bottom and stopped.

Just then old Ogrebones, the kingfisher, came skimming along like a blue flash over the pond, and he settled on a twig near his hole in the bank.

"Morning, neighbour," said he to the wagtail. "How are flies this morning?"

"Scarce, very scarce," said the wagtail. "There was a poacher out on my place catching the poor things with a machine, which he shot at them.

One of the lowest-looking, rough customers you ever saw. He said his name was Brown Toad, and quite insulted me about my figure,--an ugly, pumpkin--shaped, pod-nosed thing."

"Oh! I know him," said the kingfisher; "I often meet his first cousin down here in the pond when I'm diving. They're a low lot; a cold-blooded set; but what can you expect from a thing whose eggs are soft, and left to hatch themselves? Why, they are only tadpoles at first."

"You don't say so?" said the wagtail, who had not the least idea what a tadpole was, unless it was the pole the gardener used to pull the weeds out of the pond with. "You don't say so?"

"O yes!" said Ogrebones; "it's a fact; I tried to eat one once, but couldn't get on with it at all. You see, I'm an English bird, and not French, so that I cannot manage frog."

"Of course not; I see," said the wagtail.

But the kingfisher did not stop to hear him out, for all of a sudden he sprang up, poised himself a moment in the sunny air, and then darted into the water, from whence he presently emerged, bearing a little struggling fish in his great beak, and with the sparkling drops of water running off his back, and leaving his bright glossy blue feathers all dry, shining, and bright, as though he had only been for a flight through the air.

"There," said Ogrebones, "I've got him this time, and not without trying. I've missed this little chap twice over, but when once Mrs K inside there takes him in hand, he will have no chance; for it will be eggs and crumb, and frying-pan with him in no time."

So then old Ogrebones disappeared within his hole; Wagtail betook himself to his nest to relate his morning's experiences to the patient Mrs Wagtail, who, like many other friends and relatives, was busy keeping her eggs warm; and so the pond was for the moment vacated by the birds; but it was not alone for all that, for a pretty place was that pond, just at the bottom of Greenlawn--a pond rich in life of all kinds; this was where the blue-eyed forget-me-not was always peeping up at the pa.s.sers-by; there grew the yellow water-lily floating amongst its great dark green leaves, like a golden cup offered by the water fairies for drinking the clear crystal liquid. The white water-b.u.t.tercups, too, glistened over the shallow parts, with such crisp brown water-cresses in between, as would have made a relish to the bread and b.u.t.ter of a princess. All round the edges was a waving green fringe of reeds and rushes--bulrushes with their brown pokery seed-vessels--plaiting rushes with their ta.s.selled blossoms--and reeds with graceful drooping feathery plumes waving in the soft summer air. Down in the depths of the pond glided by the silvery little fish, glistening and bright; while on the surface skimmed no end of insects: shiny beetles forming patterns on the water as they dodged in and out, and round and round in their play; long-legged insects that ran over the water as though it were a hard road; while darting about in all their metallic brightness and on gauzy wings flitted the dragon-flies, blue, green, and blue and green--now settling upon the end of some reed, now careering in mid air, now poised motionless with wings invisible in their rapid beat, now disturbed by the buzz of some great humble-bee, and then round and round and up and down in pursuit of one of their own tribe, till the gauzy wings beat together and rustled as they came in contact. b.u.t.terflies, white, yellow, blue, orange-spotted, tortoise-sh.e.l.l, peac.o.c.k-eyed, and laced, came there to flit over the gla.s.sy water, and look within it at their beauty; and here, too, came the mayflies to dance up and down all the day, and die when even came. There never was such a pond anywhere else; for here came the martins and swallows, with their glossy black backs, to skim and dip and drink the water in their rapid flight; here they feasted on flies and gnats; and now and then came the squealing, sooty swift, with his long knife-blade wings, and tiny hand-like feet, to whisk away some heedless fly. The swallows above all liked the pond, and used to sit upon the dead branch of the weeping-willow to twitter and sing after their fashion for half-an-hour together. Old Ogrebones was the great man of the place; but, in the cool of the evening, out would come sailing from the midst of the little reed island, and flicking their round stumpy tails, the moor hens swimming away, to the great disgust of the white ducks, who said they were only impostors, and had no business to swim, because they had no webs to their feet, but only long straggling toes. And what ducks those were! white as snow, with red legs; and often and often they would put their beaks in the soft warm white feathers on their backs and sit upon the water for hours together. All the birds loved the pond, and would fly down of a morning to have a regular splash and wash; flicking the water about with their wings, and sending it flashing and sparkling ever so high in the air, and making the little black tadpoles or pod-noddles go scuffling off into the deeper water. This was the place that old Boxer loved, and when he could get a chance he would go and wet his feet, and rustle about in amongst the reeds, and pretend to go in the water to swim after the ducks, but always turning back when he got in up to his body.

CHAPTER NINE.

A TALL GENTLEMAN.

"Hum!" said Mrs Spottleover one morning to Mrs Flutethroat, after they had been having a wash in the bright pure water. "Hum!" she said, looking at the duck's brood of little downies swimming about after her, and one of them with a bit of sh.e.l.l sticking to its back. "Hum! yes, pretty well, but why yellow?"

"Ah! my dear, they will come white; they're not bleached yet. But they are strong, aren't they? Look at the little ones, now, only four hours old, and feeding themselves! Don't you wish yours would? Only think of the trouble they give before they can feed alone!"

"Well!" said Mrs Spottleover, "that's all very well, but, after all, those little downy b.a.l.l.s take as much looking after as our little ones; and then only think of one's child growing up to say nothing better than 'Quack-quack,' besides being flat-nosed and frog-footed. Depend upon it, my dear, things are best as they are!"

"Well, I suppose you are right," said Mrs Flutethroat; "but I must not stay here gossiping, for I have no end of work to do this morning."

Saying which the hen blackbird shook out her long dusky wings, cried "Pink-pink-pink," and flew off to the laurel bush to attend to her little ones; while the thrush hopped up into a tree to see how the haws were getting on, and whether there would be a good crop for the winter.

Just then there was a great shadow pa.s.sed over the pond, and the ducklings splashed through the water, because they were so frightened, and then flop-flop, flip-flop, flip-flop, there came old Shadowbody, the heron, to the pond, and pitched down by the haunt of the kingfisher, where he stood with his long stilty legs half in the water, his great floppy wings doubled up close to his sides, and his long neck squeezed between his shoulders all of a bundle; and there he stood looking as though he were going to sleep; but not a bit of it, old Shadowbody, or Bluescrags, as some of the saucy young birds called him, did not stand by the side of a pond to go to sleep, but to look after his dinner.

By-and-by the ducklings, seeing that the heron did not move, came nearer to him; and at last a little white fly went sailing along under his beak, and two ducklings set off on a race over the surface of the pond to see which would get the little white fly; and so busy were they that they forgot all about the great heron, and went up close to him, splashing him all over with the bright sparkling water.

"Take that, you ugly little downy dab," said the heron in a pet. "Do you think I came here to be made a water-mop of? Get out with you! see how you've wetted my waistcoat. Take that!"

And the poor little duckling did take _that_, and scampered off to its mother, crying out in such a pitiful voice, "Wheedle-wheedle-wheedle,"

that the heron forgot his ill-humour and burst out laughing, and felt quite sorry that he had given poor little Yellow-down such a cruel poke in its back with his long sharp beak.

"Serve it right, though," said the heron; "coming splashing, and dashing, and sending the water all over a sedate, quiet gentleman, quietly fishing by the side of a pond! And a nice pond it seems too, with plenty of fish in it. It strikes me I shall often come here."

Just then Bluescrags made a poke at a fish, and caught it in his long bill, and gobbled it up in no time. But he was not to enjoy himself long, for the duck was telling all her neighbours about the ill-usage her little one had received; and the mischief-making little wagtail thought as he had seen the lanky bird eating what he called the kingfisher's fishes, he would go and tell, and then sit on the bank and see the quarrel there would be; for he considered that the heron had no more business to take the fish out of the pond than the toad had to catch flies. So he ran to the blue bird's hole, and sticking in his little thin body, he ran up it to the nest, shouting, "Neighbour, neighbour; thieves, thieves!"

"Where, where?" said Ogrebones the kingfisher.

"Here; running away with your fish by the dozen," said the wagtail.

"Well, get out of the way," said the kingfisher, bustling out of the nest and going towards the mouth of the hole. "There, do make haste."

But the wagtail couldn't make haste, for his tail was so long he could not turn round in the hole, and so had to walk backwards the best way he could, with the points of his tail-feathers catching against the wall and sending him forwards upon his beak, and making the old kingfisher so crabby, that at last he gave the poor wagtail a dig with his heavy beak that made him cry out, "Peek-peek-peek."

"Then why don't you get out of the way, when all one's fish are being taken and stolen?"

Now the wagtail thought this very strange behaviour, when he had taken the trouble to let old Ogrebones know, and so he very wisely made up his mind never to interfere with other people's business again; for, said he, as he got out of the hole at last, "I don't know but what the heron has as good a right to the fish as old surly has; at all events, I'll never fetch him out any more."

Out bounced the kingfisher--"Here! hi! I say! you, there! what are you after, impudence? Do you know that you are poaching?"

"Eh?" said the heron, looking at the showy little bird that was flitting round him with his feathers sticking up, and looking as though he were in a terrible pa.s.sion; "Eh?" said the heron, "what's poaching?"

"What's poaching, ignoramus? why, taking other people's fish. Don't you know who I am?" said the kingfisher, sitting upon a spray and looking very self-satisfied and important.

"No," said the heron; "I don't know you. But you are not a bad-looking little fellow; only you are small--very small. Why, where are your legs?"

"Come, now," said Ogrebones, "none of your impudence, old longshanks.

I'm the king--the kingfisher; and I order you off; so go at once."

"Ho-ho-ho," laughed the tall bird. "And pray who made you a king? I'm not going to be driven off by such a scrubby little thing as you, even if you have got such grand feathers on your back. Why, if I were to shut my bill upon your neck, that head of yours would drop off regularly scissored, and then you'd be just such a king as Charles the First."

"Oh, dear!" said the kingfisher, "only hark at him! I never heard such a character before in my life."

"He nearly killed one of my little ones," quacked the duck, coming up.

"Stuck his beak in my back," said a frog, putting his nose out of the water; and then seeing that the heron was going to make a dart at him, "Ouf," said he, popping down again in a hurry, and never stopping until had crept close down to the bottom of the pond where he crept under the weeds, and lay there all day, lost frightened to death.

"Keep your little flat bills at home, ma'am," said the heron. "But really," he said politely, "I did not know they were yours, or I should not have done so; but who would have thought that those little yellow dabs were children of such a beautifully white and graceful creature as you are?"

Whereupon the duck blushed, and spread one of her webbed feet before her face, and looked quite pleased at the compliment.

"Don't listen to him," croaked the kingfisher, backing into his hole; "he's a cheat, and a bad character, and thief, and a--"

But the heron here made a poke at his royal highness with his great scissors bill, and the kingfisher scuffled out of sight in a fright, having learnt the lesson that a small tyrant, however grandly he may dress, is not always believed in; for with all his bright colours and gaudy plumes he was no match for the great sober-hued, flap-winged heron, who only laughed at him, and all his grand swaggering; and, as soon as he was gone, settled himself down to his work, and caught fish enough for a good meal, for he felt quite certain that he had as good a right to the fish as the little king, who had had it his own way so long that he thought everybody would give way to him.

Poke went the heron's bill, and out came a finny struggler; but it was no use to kick, for Bluescrags never left go when once he had hold of a fish, and he was just gobbling it down when--

"Hillo-ho-ho-o-o," cried a voice, and looking towards the place from whence the sound proceeded, the heron, as he rose from the ground, saw a man holding upon his hand a large sharp-winged bird, with a cruel-looking mouth, like that belonging to Hookbeak, the hawk, who sometimes pa.s.sed over the garden, and such bright yellow and black piercing eyes, that as soon as Bluescrags felt their glance meet his, he turned all of a shiver, and his feathers began to ruffle up as though he were wet. But there was no time to shiver or shake, for the great bird was coming after him at a terrible rate, every beat of his pointed wings sending him dashing through the air, and in another moment the strange, fierce bird would have had the sharp claws he stretched out in the poor heron, but for the sudden and frantic effort he made to escape.

All this while Mrs Flutethroat was crying, "Pink-pink-pink" in the shrubbery, in a state of the greatest alarm, for a man had pa.s.sed by the place where she was teaching her young ones to fly, carrying a bird on his gloved hand; while the bird had a curious cap upon its head, so contrived that it could not see anything; but the blackbird could see its yellow legs and cruel hooked claws that were stuck tightly into the thick glove the man wore.