First in the Field Part 1

First in the Field.

by George Manville Fenn.

CHAPTER ONE.

ONE AFTERNOON.

"I say, don't, Green: let the poor things alone!"

"You mind your own business. Oh! bother the old thorns!"

Brian Green s.n.a.t.c.hed his hand out of the quickset hedge into which he had thrust it, to reach the rough outside of a nest built by a bird, evidently in the belief that the hawthorn leaves would hide it from sight, and while they were growing the thorns would protect it from mischievous hands.

But the leaves opened out slowly that cold spring, and a party of boys from Dr Dunham's school, the Friary, Broadhurst, Kent, was not long in spying out the unlucky parents' attempt at house-building and nursery.

Still, the thorns did their duty to some extent when Brian Green of the red head leaped across the big dry ditch, rudely crushing a great clump of primroses and forcing them down the slope, for when the freckled-faced lad thrust his hand in to grasp the nest a sharp p.r.i.c.k made him withdraw it, while this action brought it in contact with a natural _chevaux de frise_, scarified the back, and made a long scratch on his thumb.

"I wish you'd keep your tongue inside your teeth, Nic Braydon!" cried the boy fiercely. "You won't be happy till I've given you another licking. Look here what you've made me do!"

"I didn't make you do it," said the first speaker. "Why don't you let the birds alone?"

"Because, if you please, Miss Braydon," said the bigger lad mincingly, "I'm not so good as you are. Oh dear, no! I'm going to take that nest of young blackbirds because I want them to bring up and keep in a cage.

I'm going to transport them to the shed in the playground."

The first boy winced sharply at his companion's words, and the four lads present burst into a derisive laugh at his annoyance; but he smothered it down, and said quietly:--"Then you may as well leave them alone, for they're not blackbirds."

"Yes, they are, stoopid."

"No, they're not."

"How do you know?"

"Because I found the nest when it was first built, and saw the eggs and the old bird sitting."

"Oh, that's it, is it? Oh, I say, isn't he a nice, good little boy? He doesn't want me to take the young birds because he wants to steal them himself."

The others laughed in their thoughtlessness as their schoolfellow winced again, and Brian Green still hung on to the bank, sucking the scratches on his bleeding hand and grinning with satisfaction at the annoyance his innuendoes caused.

"I say, boys," he cried, "they don't transport people for life for stealing young blackbirds, do they?"

There was a fresh roar of laughter, and the boys watched Dominic Braydon, who stood frowning, to see if he would make some sharp retort, verbal or physical, and perhaps get thrashed again. But he concealed his annoyance, and said quietly:

"That's a thrush's nest."

"You don't know anything about it, Convict," said Green.

The boy winced again; but he went on:

"Well, I know that. Blackbirds make rougher nests, and they're not plastered inside so neatly with clay as that is. Then the eggs are different: blackbirds' are all smudgy, dingy green; those were beautiful blue eggs, with a few clear spots on one end. Yes, look," he cried; "there's half one of them."

As he spoke he leaped down into the ditch, and picked up a fragile, dried-up portion of an egg and showed it to his companions.

"Yah! Old Botany Bay don't know what he's talking about," said Green, dragging a hedge-stake from the top of the bank, and wrenching the upper part of the dense hawthorn growth into a gap, through which he pulled the nest with its contents, four half-fledged birds, looking, with the loose down at the back of their heads, their great goggle eyes and wide gapes, combined with the spiky, undeveloped feathers and general nakedness, about as ugly, goblin-like creatures as a painter could have desired.

"There!" cried Green, dropping the hedge-stake and leaping back over the ditch; "aren't those blackbirds? Oh, murder!"

There was a great roar of laughter, for the clumsy leap resulted in two of the callow birds being jerked out heavily into the bottom of the ditch, and upon their recovery one was found to be dead.

"Never mind," said Green; "three are better to bring up. Now then, in you go, ugly."

He placed the bird in the nest with its companions, down by which it snuggled itself at once, so that the three completely filled the bottom.

"Fits splendidly, boys. I shall make old Botany Bay get worms for me and chop them up to feed them."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself;" said the first boy, frowning.

"You know you let those young starlings die."

"You ought to be ashamed of yourself;" retorted Green, "getting yourself put in a school among young gentlemen. I don't know what the doctor was thinking about to take a convict's son."

"My father is not a convict," cried Dominic angrily.

"Oh, isn't he, just. Transported for life. We know, don't we, boys?"

"Yes--yes," was chorused.

"Of course he was," cried Green. "You can't keep these things quiet.

Pretends his father is a settler. Yes; the judge settled him for life."

The boy looked round for applause, and received it sufficiently to make him go on with his banter.

"Just as if we weren't sure to find out the truth. Calls him a squatter. Yes; the government made him squat pretty quickly."

There was another laugh as the boys wandered on along the edge of the great common, where the quickset hedge divided it from the cultivated land, high above which a lark was circling and singing with all its might.

"I want to know why the doctor lets him stop amongst gentlemen's sons."

"I know, Bry Green," said a mischievous-looking, dark-eyed boy; "it's because his father pays."

"He wouldn't be here long if his father didn't," said Green laughingly.

"Unless he supplied the doctor with sugar and soap and candles and soda and blue."

There was a roar of laughter once more, in which Dominic Braydon joined, and Green turned so suddenly on the last speaker that the young thrushes were nearly jerked out of the nest.

"Do you want me to give you a wipe on the mouth, Tomlins?" cried the boy angrily.

"Oh no, sir; please don't, sir," was the reply, with a display of mock horror and dread; "only you said gentlemen's sons, sir,--and I thought what a pity it was Nic Braydon's father wasn't a grocer."

"My father's a wholesale dealer in the City," said Green loftily; "and it's only as a favour that he lets old Dunham have things from his warehouse at trade price."