Penelope and the Others Part 23

"After all, it was me that thought of asking Andrew."

"Well, then," said Ambrose, "you can ask Miss Grey if you may. But you won't want to come further than the gate?" he added in a warning tone.

David could readily promise that, for he was a good deal afraid of Dr Budge; and he ran off at once to get Miss Grey's consent.

This having been given, the two boys set off together the next morning, with Jack in a basket between them making hard angry pecks at the side of it the whole way.

They could see the doctor's cottage for some distance before they reached it, and presently the doctor himself came out and stood at the gate.

"When he sees the basket," remarked David, "he'll think we've found his jackdaw, or p'r'aps he'll think we're bringing him a new one. Won't he be disappointed?"

"I sha'n't give him time to think," said Ambrose. "I shall say, 'I've brought a call-bird,' directly I get to him."

David thought it would have been more to the purpose to say, "_We've_ brought a call-bird," but he did not wish to begin a dispute just then, so he let the remark pa.s.s.

"Do you suppose," he said, "that he knows what a call-bird is?"

Ambrose gave a snort of contempt.

"Why, there's not a single thing he doesn't know," he answered. "He knows everything in the world."

David's awe increased as they got nearer to the cottage and Dr Budge, who stood with his hands in the pockets of his flannel dressing-gown watching their approach.

"You'd better go back now," said Ambrose when they were quite close.

"I'll take the basket."

But David was not going to give up his rights, and he held firmly on to his side of the handle.

"You said I might carry it to the gate," he replied firmly; and thus, both the boys advancing, the basket was set down at the doctor's feet.

"It's a call-bird," said Ambrose very quickly, without waiting to say good-morning, while David fixed his broadest stare on the doctor's face to see the effect of the words.

Doctor Budge looked down at the basket, in which Jack now began to flutter restlessly, and then at the two boys.

"A call-bird, eh?" he said. "And what may a call-bird be?"

Ambrose felt that David was casting a glance of triumph at him. Dr Budge evidently did _not_ know everything in the world. He wished David would go away, but in spite of the sharp nudge he had given him when they put the basket down, he showed no sign of moving. The meaning of the call-bird was soon made clear to the doctor, who listened attentively and said it seemed a very good idea, and that he was much obliged to them for telling him of it.

"It was Andrew who told us," broke in David, speaking for the first time. "We didn't either of us know it before."

"You'd better go home now," said Ambrose, who saw that David did not mean to notice any hints; "you'll be late for Miss Grey."

He took up the basket and gave his brother a meaning look. David's face fell. He would have liked to see Jack put into the cage, but he had promised not to want to go in. As he turned away rather unwillingly the doctor's voice fell on his ear.

"No," it said. "David shall stay too and help. I will ask Miss Grey to excuse him if he is late."

Very soon the two boys, with Dr Budge looking seriously on, had taken Jack out of his basket and put him, in spite of pecks and struggles, into the wicker cage. When this was hung in the medlar-tree just above the bench, he became more composed, and seemed even proud of his new position, but stood in perfect silence, turning his cold grey eye downwards on the doctor and the boys.

"He doesn't look as if he meant to call," remarked David, "but I daresay he'll wait till we're gone."

Although they were all unwilling to leave the jackdaw alone, it did not seem to be of any use to stay there looking at him any longer. The doctor and Ambrose therefore went indoors to their books, and David ran quickly home to his lessons. But it was harder work than usual to attend to Latin verbs and declensions, and Ambrose wondered if Dr Budge's thoughts were as much with the jackdaw as his own.

The window looking into the garden had been left a little open so that any unusual noise could be plainly heard in the room, but for some time only the squeak of the doctor's pen broke the silence. Ambrose began to despair. It would be very disappointing to find that the call-bird was a failure, and very sad for the doctor to be without a jackdaw. Should he give him his? He was fond of his jackdaw, but then he had other pets, and the doctor was so lonely. He had only old brown books and curiosities to bear him company.

Just as he was turning this over in his mind, there came a sudden and angry cawing noise from the garden. Ambrose looked up and met the doctor's eye; without a word they both started up and made for the garden.

There was such a noise that the medlar-tree seemed to be full of jackdaws engaged in angry dispute, but when they got close under it, they found that there were only two. Ambrose's bird stood in the wicker cage, making himself as tall and upright as he could, with all the feathers on his head proudly fluffed up. He was uttering short self-satisfied croaks, which seemed to add to the rage of the other bird perched on a bough immediately above him. With his wings outspread, his head flattened, and his beak wide open, he seemed beside himself with fury at finding the stranger in his house. Screaming and scolding at the top of his voice, he took no notice of Ambrose, who ran out before the doctor and jumped up on the bench under the tree.

"Isn't it splendid?" he cried, looking back at his master. "He's come back you see, and isn't he cross? Shall I try to get him down?"

In his excitement he spoke just as he would have done to David or Nancy.

"No, no," said the doctor hastily, his face redder than usual, and putting his hand on Ambrose's shoulder, "he doesn't know you, you'd scare him away. Let me come."

He mounted on the bench beside Ambrose and stretched his arm up through the boughs of the tree.

"He knows my voice," he said. "Come, then, Jack."

Jack's only reply was an angry hiss, and a peck delivered at the doctor's hand with the whole force of his body.

"You see he knows me," said the doctor smiling, "he always does that.

He's a little out of temper just now."

"Hadn't you better throw a duster over his head?" said Ambrose eagerly; "that's a very good way to catch them."

"If he'd only let me scratch his poll," said the doctor, "he'd be all right directly, but I can't get at him."

They were now joined by the doctor's housekeeper, who came out with her arms folded in her ap.r.o.n to see what was going on. She stood looking at the doctor's vain exertions a moment, and then said:

"Best take away t'other, master, he'll never come to ye else."

"Why, I wonder we never thought of that!" said the doctor at once, lifting the cage off the bough. "I'm much obliged to you, Mrs Gill.

Perhaps you'd kindly take it indoors out of sight, and then we'll try again."

Mrs Gill departed with the care, and the doctor once more reached up his hand to the jackdaw.

"Come, then, Jack," he said in a soothing tone.

The bird hesitated a moment, and then, to Ambrose's great excitement, stepped on to the offered finger, and allowed himself to be drawn down from the tree. After this, his cage being brought out with no signs of the stranger, and some choice morsels of food placed in it, he showed no more bad temper, but marched in at the door, and began to eat greedily.

The doctor breathed a sigh of relief at this happy ending, and Ambrose, with his own jackdaw in the basket again, stood by with a proud smile on his face.

"Wasn't it a good plan?" he said. "And now you'll cut his wing, won't you? else p'r'aps he'll get away again."

"We shall see, we shall see," said Dr Budge, reaching up to hang the cage on its old nail in the window. "At any rate I am very much obliged to you, and to David, and to Andrew--a friend in need is a friend indeed."

It was wonderful, Ambrose thought on his way home, that Dr Budge had remembered three names and got them all right. Nancy came running to meet him at the white gate.

"Well," she cried, "has he come back?"