Chapter V: Part 5

More than twenty-four hours passed uneventfully, save that the supply of corn was doubled, but as Saturday night drew on many unaccustomed sounds disturbed the bulls--sounds of carriage wheels, the tramp of many horses and the noise of human voices. More than once the huge animals rose to their feet and looked round uneasily, but the bullocks showed no sign of nervousness, and Miguel was in his place. Night deepened, but moon and stars shone with a good grace, and soon there were other lights moving close to the ground--lanterns carried by horsemen at the end of long poles. Miguel's voice sounded across the tablada, calling the beasts by name; they rose to their feet and came together, a dark, unwieldy nervous mass that a false movement might have turned into a destructive force. But other ganaderos were riding through the tablada now and calling the bullocks, that, obedient to the summons, gathered round the bulls and, preceded by Miguel and one ganadero, led the way through the pastures to the high road. As soon as this was reached Miguel's companion shook his reins and darted off at a thundering gallop along the Seville road. His the duty to warn belated travellers that the encierro had commenced, to turn carriages and waggons into side lanes, and then to continue his headlong rush until the plaza de toros was reached, and he could summon the men on duty there to light their fires and open the great gate leading to the toril. It was a simple matter enough to take the bulls from their native pasture to the place they were leaving now, but the last few miles between the tablada and the bull-ring were full of dangers, for all Seville was accustomed to turn out to see the procession.

When bulls, bullocks and their guardians were safely on the high road, a long procession of carriages, followed by men on horse and afoot, came from a turn in the main road and formed a sort of rearguard.

The fascination of the night-ride was at once their justification and their excuse. The air was so still that the ringing sound of flying hoofs reached the ear when the first ganadero was some two miles in advance of the procession; one was conscious of the heavy, intoxicating perfume that stole out from gardens on either side of the road. From the poplar trees came the ceaseless call of the cigarrons, nightingales sang amid the orange-orchards of Las Delicias, the melancholy cry of the bittern rose from the river marshes, mingled with the croaking of the bull-frogs never at rest. And every venta along the roadside was crowded, the garden trees were hung with lanterns, guitars tinkled an accompaniment to malagueñas, jotas, boleros and other songs and dances of Southern Spain, and through the pageant and festivities prepared in their honour the bulls moved with silent dignity. Right along the Guadalquivir's bank, where the lights shone from the faluchas at rest upon its waters, they tramped almost up to the Tower of Gold, and then the plaza de toros shone out clearly in the light of huge bonfires kindled just beyond its boundaries. Guided for the first and last time by the poles of the ganaderos, the bullocks turned sharply to the right, and after a moment's hesitation that gave the one touch of suspense to the proceedings, the fighting bulls followed. The heavy doors were drawn behind them, the procession dispersed, and, quite unseen by any eyes save those of the men engaged, each bull was driven to his own condemned cell, while the bullocks remained by themselves in a small straw-covered yard. Then profound silence reigned throughout the city, broken only when the bells clashed from the Giralda Tower and the old serenos who paraded the streets with spear and lantern cried to the Maria Santissima that the night was clear.

* * * * *

In his narrow prison El Cuchillo may have noted the coming of the morning when one white bar of light fell across the wall. There were sounds of activity beyond the toril, but he remained undisturbed. He had little room to turn, there was no food, and, worse still, no water. Hunger, thirst and fear yielded slowly to an overmastering sense of anger, founded upon his consciousness of giant strength. He bellowed savagely, and would have given effect to his rage had it been possible to move freely.

Long hours passed; morning yielded to afternoon. The great splash of light that came through the bars waxed intense and intolerant and then waned slowly with the passing hours, while an indescribable sense of movement filled the twilight of the condemned cell. In some subtle fashion it told of the gathering of an expectant multitude. On a sudden a military band, somewhere just beyond the toril, crashed out the Spanish National Anthem, there were cheers and shouts, succeeded by a death-like stillness that was broken in its turn by a shrill, penetrating trumpet call. Time after time, for more than an hour, came the reverberating notes, the snatches of wild music, the cries from many thousand throats. Only one word rang clear: "Espartero".

At last El Cuchillo became conscious of voices on either side of him, the light broadened, and a hand, shooting out a little way above him, stuck the barbed point of a red rosette in his shoulder. A moment later the trumpets called again, the front wall of his prison opened as though by magic, and he dashed forward with a rush that brought him half way across the yellow arena. A yell from twelve thousand throats arrested him; he lashed his flanks, blinked a little--for even the setting sun hurt his eyes after those long hours of darkness--and then answered his audience with a roar of defiance. Certainly he knew that he was surrounded by his enemies; perhaps the awful odour of blood that filled the arena gave him some prevision of the butchery that was to accompany his death.

Let us pass over the first few minutes of the struggle. El Cuchillo knew no difference between the armour-cased picadores who carried the spiked poles, and the hapless, unprotected, blindfolded horses they bestrode. That is all that needs be said by way of excuse for the six carcases that strewed the arena when the tercio sounded, carcases from which the blue-coated attendants had stripped saddle and bridle. With one exception the picadores had fallen behind their horses in the most approved fashion; the exception, a heavy man, protected at all vital points against the reddened horns, was tossed high into the air and carried off with a broken collar-bone; while Espartero himself drew El Cuchillo away with some of the most superb cloak-work Seville had seen since Lagartijo retired from the bull-ring.

With the enthusiasm of the huge auditorium a thrill of amazement was mingled. Though the bull's neck bore red marks of the picadores' poles, he was singularly fresh, his breathing was not short and sharp as it should have been, and he was in no sense distressed.

Conecito came forward with his banderillas, the beribboned spears used for the second attack upon the bull, and the crowd cheered lustily, for the banderillero was a favourite. Bull and man seemed to charge together, and then Conecito was seen travelling post-haste for the barrier, which he reached just in time, while his opponent drew up and trotted off gamely but with "half a pair" (the technical term for one banderilla) hanging from his shoulder. The second banderillero tried next and failed altogether--El Cuchillo's pace beat him utterly; and then, to the accompaniment of a roar of applause and a burst of barbaric music, Espartero himself came forward with a pair of the light lances. This time there was no mistake. For all Cuchillo's wonderful habit of using his eyes as he charged he could never quite tell where the great matador would cross him, and at the second attempt the two lances were beautifully placed. Then Conecito tried again, with the same result as before, save that the one sent home was on the other side of the bull's flank, so that he carried two pairs now. The second banderillero was quite beaten, but the renowned Rafael Guerra, who led the second cuadrilla, succeeded, amid thunders of acclamation. Then the judge raised his hand to the string with which he signalled, the trumpeters sounded the third call and a great hush fell upon the arena.

Espartero was to kill. The great diestro, who had been testing the quality of two or three swords, and giving instructions to the footmen of his cuadrilla, now chose his weapon, and wrapping the scarlet muleta round it strode across the arena until he stood below the President's box.

Hat in hand, he asked permission to kill El Cuchillo in manner that would do honour to Seville. The President raised his hat in token of assent; Espartero flung his own over the barrier and turned towards the middle of the arena, where El Cuchillo, standing sturdily defiant, greeted his coming with a thunderous bellow, and stared with bloodshot eyes at the gold epaulettes and braid, the gaudy coat, the red waistband and blood-stained white stockings of his enemy.

Conecito, who now carried one of the plum-coloured cloaks, stood a little to the left of his chief and heard Espartero speak to the bull as though he were a human being.

"El Cuchillo," he said slowly, almost solemnly, "you are a great bull and know no fear. You have killed six horses and you are still fresh. I, Espartero, salute and honour you. And now one of us must die."

So saying, he unfurled the scarlet cloth, the muleta, and flashed it across the bull's startled eyes, so that he charged the uncanny thing. It jumped up out of his reach, and came back just below his nose, and buzzed round him like a hornet, and led him to jump and turn and twist and lose his caution, and stand with his forelegs closer and closer together as Espartero wished, for when they were quite in the normal condition he could send his espada through the matted hair over the shoulder and through the lungs to the heart. Then on a sudden, when the aficionados were telling each other that the end of the splendid animal would be tame enough, and speculating whether Espartero would kill with his favourite volapies, or would fall back on the descabello à pulso, that must be difficult with a bull whose movements were so uncertain, El Cuchillo seemed to recover his nerve. He ignored the muleta and rushed at Espartero himself, and in that moment all the diestro's plans were upset, and he was forced to save himself by one of the agile turns of which he was the master.

The trumpets sounded a single warning note; Espartero had gone beyond the time allotted to him. A murmur of astonishment rippled round the vast arena; never before in the history of Seville had Espartero been warned. Even the boys who sell programmes and fruit and sandwiches ceased their cries; the flutter of fans on the sunny side of the ring faded into stillness almost automatically; and the gaudy flags that decked the arena seemed to hang breathless. Alone in that vast concourse matador and bull preserved their tranquillity, and it would be hard to say which of the two needed it most.

Espartero realised the need for prompt action. With splendid disregard for danger he returned to his work, and once again the muleta flashed all round the bull's head, bewildering, dazing and almost stupefying him, while one of the banderillas that lay right across the animal's shoulder was lifted into its proper place by a daring stroke of the sword. For a moment the forelegs came together, and it seemed as though Espartero hurled himself upon the bull, but a second later the sword was high in the air, the matador's stroke had been foiled by one of El Cuchillo's sudden movements, and one blood-stained horn ripped Espartero's red waistcoat as he jumped aside avoiding death by a hand's-breadth. The capadores rushed in to cover their chief's defeat, and El Cuchillo, disdaining the plum-coloured cloaks, made for one man. The moment of mad chase to the barrier was one of horrible uncertainty, the capador vaulted and fell, badly bruised, on the other side, and then El Cuchillo trotted back to the centre of the arena, distressed and bleeding, but unbeaten. The trumpet called again.

Espartero examined the sword that had been picked up and brought to him, only to fling it aside. Armed with a fresh one, he paused to replace and reassure his wondering cuadrilla, and moved forward again. His face was perfectly colourless, his hand was shaking, the fatigue of the work done during the long afternoon was making itself felt, for he had killed two difficult bulls already, and El Cuchillo had been more than twenty minutes in the arena.

"Give me your horns or take my sword this time," he cried, as he approached his enemy, and, as though in reply, El Cuchillo bellowed his defiance to Spain and its champion matador.

Now, in those last moments, the silence was almost as oppressive as the heat.

Something of the fury of despair seemed to seize upon man and beast, some shadow of their overwhelming anxiety lay heavily upon the audience. The muleta had seemingly lost its power to charm, and the matador seemed resolved to set his life upon the point of his own sword. With a superb gesture, he lowered the scarlet rag and invited El Cuchillo to charge. Hundreds of men and women, used though they were to all the carnage of the arena, turned their eyes away, until a deafening roar roused them to see Espartero hurled on one side and El Cuchillo in pursuit of the plum-coloured cloaks, with the sword quivering in his shoulder.

As the shout rolled through the arena, and Espartero walked slowly to the barrier, the setting sun made a final effort and flooded half the arena with yellow crocus-coloured light. The pigeons from the Giralda Tower swept right across the plaza, and from the sunny side rose a sudden shout of "Pardon! pardon."

It was caught up all over the arena as El Cuchillo, with a mighty effort, shook the sword out of his shoulder and, with splendid valour, returned to the centre of the arena, unbeaten still, and ready for the next attack.

The clamour increased and became deafening until Espartero was seen walking empty-handed to the corner below the President's box. Then it died away to absolute silence.

In clear tones that could be heard all over one side of the arena the great matador asked the President to grant pardon to El Cuchillo for his splendid fight, which had given more honour to the famous plaza de toros than would come to it by his death. And the President, listening gravely to his appeal, raised his hat and replied, "We pardon El Cuchillo on account of his bravery".

Amid a scene of extraordinary enthusiasm the trumpets sounded again, and the tame bullocks came into the arena by way of the toril. They grouped themselves round El Cuchillo, while people cheered and flung hats and cigars and flowers to Espartero, and the band played Spain's National Anthem. So the long-horned hero of "the herd of death" passed to the toril, where the barbs were removed, his wounds were dressed and his raging thirst was satisfied. And the crowd that had gathered along the river-side road to see him pass to his death gathered on the morrow to do him honour on his way back to the pleasant pastures of Utrera, where old age comes to him to-day, slowly and in peaceful guise.

THE CUCKOO

The month was May, the place was the Heron Wood, which was ablaze with wild hyacinths and pansies, and full of singing-birds. If you have ever been through the wood you must know the little open space in the middle with the pond to which a stray wild duck comes now and again in cold weather. From one corner of the pond you can see right down the slope to the wood's end, along a path now overgrown with ferns and weeds, but, in the old preserving days, a ride cut to enable the squire to shoot his pheasants. There a Vixen had her earth. She could see over the approach to the wood and yet remain unseen, so she was well content.

]

A bird that seemed at first sight to be a sparrow-hawk came into the wood above the ride, hard-pressed by a flock of sparrows and finches that were pursuing it with loud, angry cries. Once among the trees, the hunted one was lost to its pursuers, who gave up the chase and returned twittering to the open. The Vixen sat quite still. Suddenly she heard the flutter of leaves, as strong wings passed between them, and in another minute the bird that might have been taken for a sparrow-hawk lighted on the branch of the black-thorn above her, lowered his head, drooped his wings, spread his tail out to the fullest extent and called, "Cuc-koo," he cried, "Cuc-koo, cuc-cuk-koo".

"Well, I am surprised," said the Vixen, "I thought you were a hawk."

"So did the hedge-sparrows and the green-finches, and the yellow-hammer," laughed the Cuckoo. "It was very amusing, particularly as they could not get near me. But I would not like them to catch me in the open."

"Then why do you try to appear like a hawk when you're a cuckoo," said the Vixen. "Trouble enough comes to all of us without asking for it. At least I think so."

"I'm not so foolish as you think," explained the bird, whose plumage, now it could be seen closely, was very drab and undistinguished, just a dirty grey with brown markings, and nothing of the gloss that belongs to the feathers of the hawk tribe. "You see, I'm quite a defenceless bird. My bill is not made to deal with anything harder than insects. I'm not built for fighting. Now I'm a fair size, and every hawk can see me when I fly abroad. If they knew me for a cuckoo, I'd not do much good for myself, the first that saw me would have a free meal. So I imitate their flight and all their actions, and they take me for one of themselves. In this way I am safe to go from place to place; but there is the drawback that all the little hawk-haters of the woods and hedges are deceived too, and they mob me as you have seen. However, we can't expect to have unmixed good luck, and deception involves trouble. Upon my word, I'm almost as wise as the brown owl himself."

"How do you manage the imitation so well?" asked the Vixen. "I'm not readily deceived, but I thought you were a hawk."

"Just practice," he replied. "When I'm feeding I can twist and turn up and down any way you like, and when I'm trying to hide I can slip in and out among branches in a way your eye could not follow. But when I go into the open where there may be hawks about, I take a straight flight, keep my tail spread out, utter no sound at all and go across the fields as though I were on the look-out for little birds."

"And what are you doing in this part?" asked the Vixen suspiciously. She was not pleased to see strangers in the wood.

"I've been about since early April," replied the Cuckoo. "I've taken up my summer quarters here, and I don't mind telling you that there is no room for any other male cuckoo in this wood. I had to make an exception to my general rule of peaceful living and fight one of my own tribe for possession of this pitch. I won, and he has gone across the river."

"What about your mate?" she asked him, and the Cuckoo smiled again, rather wickedly.

"I don't mind allowing any really charming lady cuckoo to call for a few days, but she can't stay," he replied. "My instincts are those of a bachelor."

The Vixen thought it best to change the subject.

"What part have you come from?" she said.

"My winter home is in the centre of Africa," he replied. "A place south of the equator full of tropical forests, where there are lions and hippopotami and a few black people in towns and villages where a white man has never been seen.

"We leave there in March and come north. On our way through Morocco or Algeria some of us stop, unwilling to cross the sea. You can hear us in the forests of Ma'mora and Argan, and in the woods of the country of the Beni M'gild. But the most of us persevere and leave Africa and come into Spain. There the great spotted cuckoo, who is my cousin, stays and spends his summer. He is four inches longer than I am; he has a crest on his head, and white under-parts. He does not thrive as he might, for his wives will put their eggs in magpies' nests, and those birds are not good foster-parents. My cousins say that the country north of Spain is too cold for them; but we say they are too idle or too cowardly to take the longer journey. We take it, however, making the sea passage as short as possible, and travelling in separate parties."

"What do you mean by that?" asked the Vixen curiously, and keeping her eyes upon him as though she feared a surprise.

"You see we male birds come first, and the other folk follow," he explained. "They come about a week later than we do. We all land in the South and go quite at our leisure to the northern counties and to Scotland. One part of these islands is like any other to us so long as there are plenty of insect-eating birds in the neighbourhood. This year I arrived about the 6th of April."

"Nobody heard your voice before the 14th," remarked the Vixen, for she knew every sound from copse and woodland.

"We wait for our females before we sing," said the Cuckoo, "and when our notes are heard for the first time there is quite a flutter of excitement in birdland. Dozens of birds come round to ask us what we are and where we come from; they are in their first year, and have forgotten our notes. Some of the elders want to hear the news from Africa. Unfortunately, the novelty soon wears off. Our women-folk can't call as we do. They have nothing better than a husky note with something like a common chuckle in it. They try to say 'cuc,' and it sounds like 'kwook'. And now I've said quite enough for one day, and I'm going to find some dinner."

He must have lighted not very far away, for he called merrily and persistently during the next few minutes, and the notes thrilled through the wood, giving to every living thing the assurance that summer had returned at last. The Vixen waited awhile, and heard a mild, meek "kwook-oo-oo," that seemed to be the confidential reply of some fair lady of the family, then she went back to her earth. Perhaps the Cuckoo had seen or heard his partner and had gone to a more remote corner to call to her.

Through the long nights of May and June the Cuckoo seemed to be nearly always awake. He was quite the last of the woodland birds to go to sleep and the first to wake up. The Vixen would hear his call break the silence of the Heron Wood before three o'clock in the morning, when she was waiting for her lord's return. It was not always the familiar cuc-koo accented on the first syllable, but sometimes cuc-cuc-koo, and sometimes, though not often, cuc-koo-koo. He was comparatively shy; most of the cuckoos that passed over the meadow, calling as they flew, were hen birds, and it was seldom that he answered their call. One morning in early June, when the Vixen was playing with her cubs in the shaded corner by the water, he slipped through the leaves, lighted on a branch above her head, spread his tail and called loudly, jerking his body with each note as though the effort was a considerable one, and he did not want any of the significance of the cry to be lost.

"Why don't you keep your singing for the daytime," said one of the fox cubs, the biggest in the litter, "instead of waking me up before sunrise?"

"Well," he replied, "you must not grumble at that. Other birds sleep soundly because they have been busy all day building their nests or helping to hatch the eggs or feed the little ones. Naturally enough, then, the evening finds them tired out, and they sleep until the sun wakes them. But cuckoos are the wisest birds in all the world. They want to enjoy the spring and summer without the hard labour that others practise. So I have no nest to build, no wife to keep, no young to tend, and I know the Heron Wood in all its beauty as no other bird can hope to. A very few hours give me all the sleep I require, and when I wake and see the summer decorating the beautiful wood, I must tell how grateful I am. It is by my help that the wood returns thanks for the gift of summer at all hours of the day and night, for when the late woodlark ceases his song I resume mine."

"That explanation may satisfy you," the Vixen interrupted, "but I am not sure that it convinces me. For you seem to shirk your duties, and you can have no share in the joy of the birds that work; you are not a father."

"You don't know much about it," cried the Cuckoo merrily. "Follow me now, if you please."

So the Vixen, leaving her cubs to gambol about the little patch of green-sward, followed, and he went lightly through the wood until he came to a bush where two accentors, known to the village lads as hedge-sparrows, had a nest.

"Show yourself," he whispered, and when she did so the sitting bird flew away hurriedly, leaving six pale-blue eggs exposed to view.

"Look carefully," said the cuckoo with a chuckle, and the Vixen saw that one egg was rather larger than the rest, and had some tiny black specks that might have been overlooked at first sight.

"Come away," whispered the Cuckoo. "I don't like to be seen about here. But I'll tell you in confidence that I'm the father of the big blue egg."

They moved off quietly to the more secluded corner of the wood where the cubs had found some rabbits to play with.

"If boys saw the nest they might not recognise that as a cuckoo's egg at all. Some eggs have red or brown blotches on a grey-white ground; they were not like this one, and you would not see them in a hedge-sparrow's nest. They would be in a blackbird's home by the side of the ten-acre meadow, or a warbler's on the marsh, or in a wagtail's nest."

"I was born in this wood in a hedge-sparrow's nest three years ago," said the Cuckoo, on another morning when he sat on a bough above the Vixen's earth, "and when I am a father the egg is always blue. The mother of the egg you have just seen visited me for a few days at the end of May and laid this egg for me on the ground. You see I had no nest to offer her. So soon as we saw that the colour was blue, as I expected it to be, we scoured the wood for a nest that had eggs similar to it. We soon found the hedge-sparrow's. Then we waited patiently for both birds to go for an airing, and my mate took the egg up in her mouth and flew with it to the nest. There she left it, and on the following day I said good-bye to her and she went away."

"Will she lay any more eggs this year?" the Vixen asked him.

"It is quite possible," replied the Cuckoo, "at intervals of a week or ten days, but they will be no concern of mine, in fact, they may not even be blue. But they will all find a place in the nests of birds that have our tastes in food. In parts where there are no insect-eating birds you would have to search a long time to find a cuckoo."

"Do the hedge-sparrows, and warblers, and pipits and the rest of them realise the trick you have played upon them?" she asked him. "My mother once chose a badger's earth for her home and I was the only one that got out alive."

"Never," he replied lightly. "They only think one of their eggs is a little unlike the rest, that's all. You know our eggs are quite small for our size. And when they are all hatched the parents must work harder than they expected to, for a young cuckoo can eat as much as the rest of the family put together."

Some fourteen or fifteen days after the strange egg had been put in it, a blind ugly cuckoo came from the shell in the hedge-sparrow's nest, calling for food. The little hedge-sparrows had not yet appeared, but the unoccupied parent bird had all his work cut out to keep the newcomer satisfied. He was constantly on the wing through the wood in search of insects, and very often strayed to the orchard of Home Farm, where fat green caterpillars, most luscious morsels, were to be found among the currant bushes. And all that time the Father Cuckoo was living at ease on the fat of the land.

"I met that hard-working hedge-sparrow this morning," he said to the Vixen, when he took his favourite place on the branch of an elder above her earth; "he was coming to the orchard as I left it. What a splendid arrangement it is to be sure. I'm sure my baby will be well fed, and that foster-father seems to enjoy the work. Let him thank his good luck there are not two of my family in his nest. If there were, he would have no time to feed himself or his mate."

"Do the hens ever put two eggs into one nest?" said the Vixen.

"Only by accident," he replied. "Sometimes it happens that a hen carries an egg to a nest, and deposits it there without noticing that some other hen has been before her. She would not carry two of her own eggs to the same nest. Hers is too keen a sense of affection for the unborn; she knows as well as I do that there is quite enough work for any pair of small birds in the raising of a single cuckoo."

The little hedge-sparrows were born only to die. Their ungainly foster-brother was clamorous for all the food that reached the nest, and he could not stretch himself without danger to the little ones. Do not let it be said that he deliberately murdered them; but before they were three days old all lay dead on the ground below the hedge. The parent birds did not seem to feel their loss very keenly. Probably this was their second brood, and the earlier one had been reared successfully; for the nest, built of wool and horsehair and soft mosses, is always one of the first to appear in the Heron Wood, and, being badly hidden, is preyed upon by all unscrupulous egg-eating birds, or egg-collecting boys.

This one was hardly two feet from the ground, and might have escaped notice, had not the cuckoo-mother been looking for such an one. But even the Vixen who was not tender-hearted could not help feeling sorry for the hard-working couple, kept constantly busy to feed the thief who had thrown their proper offspring out of the nest with such complete unconcern. Possibly their hard work served to help them to forget their troubles.

Father Cuckoo to admit any responsibility though the Vixen, having a mother's feelings for the time being, remonstrated with him.

"You can't blame a young cuckoo, not a fortnight old for being hungry, and wanting all the food," he said. "And you can't blame me or his mother, for we were both brought into the world in the same fashion, and know no other. There are cousins of ours in America who make nests and bring up their young in the usual fashion; but for unknown generations they have had this custom, and we, on the other hand, have had ours.

"Nobody can explain these things. Why should I have such dull, ugly feathers, for example, when some of my African cousins have a plumage that shines as though each feather had been dipped in gold? Twice a year I moult, never without a hope that the new suit will be a brilliant one. But I remain dull and shabby; my partners are like me, and have no taste for domesticity.

"On the other hand, we can enjoy the knowledge that we are among the best loved birds in the world, so far as mankind is concerned; that thousands associate the summer with our song, and find the woodland empty when we are summoned south again. All these things are matters of natural law, and you must take us as we are, while we take the world as we find it."

"What you say may satisfy you," said the Vixen severely; "but it cannot be expected to satisfy the hedge-sparrow."

"Perhaps there is no need to think about them," rejoined the Cuckoo. "You must know that if those birds were left undisturbed, they would raise from twelve to eighteen young every season, for the hens lay three times. In a few years there would be hedge-sparrows in clouds, far more than the land can support. So Nature teaches them to set their nests in open places, where Robin, the horseman's lad, and all his school companions, may take the eggs by the dozen, and the magpie or the rook may help themselves."

"Well," she said, "you won't deny that the mother cuckoo is quite heartless?"

"I do deny it," replied the father. "She will be somewhere near the nest, and will make it her business to see that the youngster is doing well. So soon as he is able to fly she will take charge of him and bring him up in the way he should go. She keeps an eye on all her family."

"But how came he to kill the little birds?" persisted the Vixen. "We only kill for food at this time of year."

"Just want of room," replied the parent bird. "I can assure you there is no vice in him. When a young cuckoo wakes to life in a small nest, his first instinct is to make room for himself. I'm rather surprised to think that my son did not throw the eggs out right away. That is what I did when I was born in this wood. I wriggled and wriggled until I had them one after the other on the flat of my back, and then hoisted them over the side. There can't be any blame for me in the matter, because the instinct came to me as naturally as my hunger. A cuckoo's egg only takes a fortnight in the hatching, so the cuckoo baby is generally in time to throw other eggs out of the nest. When two cuckoos have got into the same nest by mistake, the two baby birds fight, and the weaker one goes out with the other eggs or the small birds. If two cuckoo eggs get placed in one nest, the cuckoo that is born first is the lucky one. Even a blackbird's nest can't hold two cuckoos. Perhaps it is our quarrelsome nature when young that made some mother cuckoos lay eggs in alien nests."

The Vixen wondered whether these incidents had anything to do with the mobbing of the cuckoo by the small birds when he went abroad. They seemed more reasonable as an explanation than the sparrow-hawk theory.

The baby cuckoo was soon fledged, and left nest and wood at the same time, leaving his father in sole possession. As the summer wore away, the call changed considerably and ceased to have the fresh ring about it. There was no loss of health to the bird associated with the failing voice. On the contrary, he was in splendid condition, and ate heartily of all the good things the wood provided--moths, caterpillars, beetles and even butterflies. The indigestible parts of these dainties he ejected in pellets, just as though he had been an owl. With the end of July his notes had quite gone; other cuckoos were coming into the district in great numbers, and were allowed to enter the wood unchallenged.

"They are from the north of England and from Scotland," he explained. "They leave early so as to be down here in good time, for we shall all go south together. Some have come all the way from the mountains of Sutherlandshire."

"But the young ones can't face the journey yet," said the Vixen. "Many of them are not yet six weeks old. My cubs take longer to learn to help themselves."

]

"That's all right," explained the Cuckoo; "the birds, you see, are all old ones; in fact, all the mother birds are three years old at least. The season's children wait in England some weeks longer than we do, and travel together. Their mothers have told them all about the road, and we all have an instinct that keeps us from taking a wrong direction."

"Why don't they accompany you?" inquired the Vixen.

"It is hard to say why we have our call in August unless it is to get home before moulting time," replied the Cuckoo, "but as far as the youngsters are concerned, I should say that they could not stand the heat of our winter home in August. We get there before September, and they are seldom with us before October, and then the country is more fit for young birds that have known no warmth worth mentioning. Coming south gradually in September, they can enjoy what awaits them at the journey's end."

"Have you a special day for your departure?" she asked. "I shall be off to the osiers in September and I'd like to see you go."

"When we have received our marching orders," replied the bird, "or as you might say, knowing no better, when the instinct for departure is upon us, we await the first fine night with a wind blowing towards the south. Have you ever noticed how the winds help birds at the season of the great migrations? They do, whether you have noticed it or not."

For some days in the beginning of August the fields and woods showed a large number of cuckoos now quite mute, and then the Vixen prepared to leave the neighbourhood. Cub hunting had started.

"We are ready to fly now," said the Cuckoo. "The signal has come to us; the wind is backing towards the north."

"Aren't you sorry to leave?" she asked him.

"Yes and no," he replied. "If you had perennial spring and summer I would stay gladly enough. But one of my family was taken half-fledged from a nest here once and lived with clipped wings in an old garden across the river. He has spoken to all of us about the English winter, and it is something we never wish to meet. We are going to a land of such sunshine as you have never seen."

Half-way through September there was no cuckoo of any age to be heard or seen. And the place seemed to lack something, over and above the crops that had gone from the fields and the green mantle that was fading from the hedgerow and the wood.

THE SEAL

Towards the latter end of May, the grown-up lady seals sought a corner of the shore where the slope was gentle and the sun was warm; the younger seals betook themselves, together with the old males, to another part of the coast, out of sight and hearing. Before the first of the long June days had come to bring new jewels to the treasury of the sea, the meaning of the separation was made plain--there were many little baby seals playing by their mothers' side. Some rested upon a little nest of white wool that had nothing to do with their skin, which was dark and of a different texture. No mother had more than one child.

Had you passed among the mother seals in the very early June days, while they sprawled at ease, suckling their little ones, you might have noticed one male seal who was rather bigger and more intelligent than most of his neighbours. You would not have been able to go among or even near them unless you had taken the form of a red shank, or an oyster-catcher, or of one of the other sea birds that are the particular friends of seals; but you may take it, that this baby was the best of the pack, if only because the story is concerned with his career.

From the tongue of rock that overlooked the smiling waters, the baby seal, clinging to his mother's side, heard the summer song of the sea, mingled pleasantly with the wondering bleating cries of many little babies like himself.

"Take me to the water," he whispered to his mother.

"Cling round my neck, then," she replied, lowering her head, and he did as she bade him, as well as his feeble limbs would permit.

"Hold on tightly," she cried, and cast herself off the rock into the deep water, that plashed and curled and danced round them, as though for very love of seals.

"Soon you will learn to dive," said Mother Seal, "you will be able to sleep on the water or under it, to catch fine fat fish when you do not want my milk any more. You are born to a beautiful life; so be happy."

Day after day, mother and son lay side by side for hours on a ledge of rock that Mother Seal's body had worn smooth; they spent only the hottest hours in the water. Soon the little one learned to face the sea, holding on to one of his mother's flippers; then he went in quite boldly alone and learned to dive, and saw the fish that lived in the depths, and pursued them clumsily and in fun, for he was not yet weaned.

Only when he was two months old, and had grown quite rapidly, did his mother tell him that he must now learn to feed himself, and by this time it was an easy task, as the plaice and flounders soon found to their cost. They could not hide themselves in the sand sufficiently quickly to escape from his pursuit.

Having finished her maternal duties, Mother Seal changed her coat. The spots that had marked it became very light, and the skin itself assumed a yellow tint that seemed quite like silver at times.

"Is it time to change?" asked the male seals, who had now returned with the young sons and daughters to the maternal haunts. "If it is, we have no time to lose," and they, too, put on the light summer dress which was, with all who wore it, a symbol of joy and happiness, a tribute to the halcyon days when domestic cares were laid aside, when there was hardly any night, when food was plentiful, and the sun seldom ceased to shine upon warm and tranquil waters.

The seals, scattered now into little groups in every bay and round every islet, enjoyed their idle days to the full. Sometimes they would travel upshore quite a long way, and laze upon the dry sand, the younger and less experienced among them being most addicted to such journeys. Every crag that looked out over the deep water had its noisy tenants, and throughout August there would be a series of dances given by various seal hosts and hostesses, at which the most agile among the visitors would glide through the water in dolphin fashion. They were inclined to be rather jealous of the dolphins.

During this pleasant season the Little Seal, now in the enjoyment of his liberty, made friends with a very old Herring-gull. The bird lighted upon his rock one afternoon and saluted him in friendliest fashion.

"I fish for my living just as you do," he remarked, "but you have some advantages over me. However, there is room for all of us, so we might as well be friends. You will find some of my family with your people all through the summer. We sometimes warn them of the approach of man."

"What is man?" queried the Young Seal, "and why do you warn us?"

"Man," explained the Herring-gull, "is the sworn foe of all things in the heavens above, on the earth beneath, and in the waters under the earth. He shoots birds in the air, pursues beasts on the land, and catches fish from the sea. If he saw you now he would certainly kill you, not because you have done him any harm, but because you are alive. He would probably shoot you, and say you were a nice little fellow, for he does not bear malice."

"But that would be murder, would it not?" asked the Seal, opening his eyes to the fullest extent.

"Oh, dear no," replied the Herring-gull, "it would be sport," and flew away, leaving the puzzled youngster to think the matter out for himself.

With September, another change of colour came to the seals. Their coat became rather darker than before, and the black spots, that began on the head and spread in ever growing patches over the body, reappeared. The flippers darkened to a heavy brown, and with all these changes came an altered mood, and the males began to fight for possession of the females.

The Young Seal took no part in these contests, though his coat showed the influence of the season; he was little more than a baby, and, on the advice of the Herring-gull, he kept away from the scene of the fighting. He had made small progress in growth since weaning time came, the fish diet that made him strong had done little to help him to develop. This mattered not at all; strength rather than length was needed to face the rough days that lay before the seal world when September was at an end, and the long fight between adult male seals was over. There was very little love in the camp during that season. Polygamy prevailed, and the conqueror took as many wives as he could keep away from his weaker brethren; but when the last fight had been fought and the early cold snaps reminded them of the hard season ahead, friendly relations were resumed throughout the community.

At the bidding of the storm-wind the sea parted with its beautiful tints, the water became very cold and lashed itself into terrible fury, and foamed like a bayed wolf. Many a rough buffet it gave to the Young Seal, and not a few bruises, but the low temperature did no harm to him. He had enough pure oil in his body to withstand Arctic cold, and on these northern Scottish shores the temperature never approached Arctic severity. His friend the Herring-gull had gone; he saw no birds now within speaking distance, though a few gulls passed down wind every few hours of the day, trying in vain to steer along the road they wished to follow.

As the winter advanced, the seals split into small groups on some family basis of their own, and passed most of their time on the rocks, climbing up from the water by the aid of the strong nails in their foreflippers and the muscles of the tail. They always faced the water from which they had risen, and their attitude at this season was a very listless one, as if the triumph of wind and rain were not altogether to their liking.

When the Little Seal joined his family party, consisting of the mother, two male seals, and several children of two and three years old--eight in all--he soon found that the bottom of the water was the most comfortable part of the world within his reach. Down upon the smooth sandy bottom there fell no shadow of the trouble cast upon the upper waters and the land, and so he learned to remain for long drowsy periods, half-sleeping, half-waking, roused to instant activity by the sense of the presence of a fish. He could see under the water as clearly as he could upon the land, and his whiskers were developing the sensitiveness that belongs to seals in even a larger measure than to cats.

These nerves served to rouse him when he was almost asleep, and indicated the presence of food. When after even a long hunt he had caught his fish, he did not need to seek land; he could eat it at his ease under the waves; and if he came up afterwards, it was generally to tread water with his flippers, and look round to take his bearings.

Finally, when he was quite tired of the sea, he would return to the home rock, climb up in the manner described, and then, resting his head upon the body of the seal nearest to him, go to sleep. Every seal attached himself to his neighbour in this fashion for reasons of safety. When they were lying in such close touch, the first sign of alarm was communicated automatically to one and all. Perhaps in that quiet corner there was little need for such extravagant precautions, but the history of seals throughout the world is one long drawn-out tragedy, and the need for care had become as strong an instinct as any that entered into their simple lives. In old days, and among kind superstitious folks, the seals had been mermen and mermaids; and when they sat on rocks in the sunshine, passing their webbed toes through their coat to keep it bright and lustrous, simple seafaring men had thought they saw mermaidens combing their golden locks. The sunlight had supplied the gold, and perhaps the little waves had lent the song; and so the story grew, and passed into legend, and gladdened many a child-like simple heart, even though it dwelt in a time-worn body. But now, in the place of gold, men had introduced the age of lead; mermaids and mermen shocked an age that held materialism to be the highest form of faith, and knew that a leaden bullet properly aimed could kill the most beautiful creature that ever played about a summer sea. So the old seals, grown wary, exercised what care they could to save their helpless, harmless families from the enemy man.

Spring came back at last, and if it made little or no difference to the aspect of the rock-strewn shore, there were pleasant changes beyond. The waters subsided and lost their angry colour, the days lengthened, the light grew stronger, and sea birds came back to the cliffs to lay their eggs, and scream and quarrel in the old familiar fashion. And with the advent of May the adult female seals withdrew from the others, and the adult males retired with the younger generation to another part of the coast where, as good luck would have it, our friend found the old Herring-gull busily pursuing his fishing.

"I'd like to travel," said the Young Seal, whose blood tingled with the spirit of the season. "I'm tired of stopping always in one place. Where does the sea end? You ought to know, seeing that you can fly all over it."

"The sea has no end and no beginning," explained the Herring-gull. "It is like the sky, boundless. Wherever I go, I find the sea. But if you wish to travel, follow the coast down until you come to a place where the water turns in towards the land. Follow carefully, until it narrows, and you reach a part where men have spread great nets. They are put there to catch a wonderful fish with scales as bright as a herring's, and a pink body that all seals love to feed upon. But be careful to stay well beyond the nets, and do not let greed tempt you to travel too far. Then I shall see you back in the late summer, and you will thank me."