Chapter 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.