Birds and Beasts

by Camille Lemonnier

Every ten minutes—the same regular interval has been observed in all owls questing for food—he would bring fresh provender to the nest. The darkest night was no hindrance; his shining eyes, with their widely dilated pupils, pierced the blackest shadows as if they were transparent, and there was no hole or corner where the little night prowlers did not go in terror of their lives.

Meanwhile the mother-bird was feeding her brood, sometimes when the mouse was particularly tough, tearing it piecemeal for her little ones to devour more easily.

At other times father and mother together would guide the little family along the roofs, patiently teaching the inexperienced wings to fly, and giving a helping touch with beak or wing when they stumbled and tumbled in their attempts. At full moon they carried the youngsters to a neighbouring tree, he taking one, she another, and it was pretty to see their amazement when, craning their little necks, they watched the dim outlines of moving objects against the blue distance.

But they were getting big now, and the old owl lectured them sagely, as his father had lectured him; he would tell them of the joys and sorrows of life, and advise them to marry. No, it was not callousness—far from it; he loved them tenderly, for by reason and instinct he was a pattern of all the domestic virtues. But he was a wise and far-seeing parent, who dreaded what their fate would be, should he and his mate one day meet the doom all owls are liable to. Perhaps one morning a yokel would climb to their hiding-hole and carry them off to kill them. True, the good Curé, whose house sheltered them, had forbidden their being molested; but he was an old man now, and nobody cared much what he said; then, with a ladder, it was so easy to reach the nest! The old owl always spoke like a philosopher; the future did not terrify him, and he seemed quite resigned to the cruel lot men mete out to his species. His words were without gall or bitterness; but a deep-seated melancholy gave them the gravity that ever marks creatures born to suffer.

In younger days he had known rebellious thoughts, and the sense of human injustice had oppressed his spirit; he had even dreamt of flying his country for the lands the swallows in September told him of, and far away from cruel men, living in peace and quietness with the mate who had joined her life to his. But time had softened these resentments; he had bowed his head, recognising a higher power above him, and content to live on, harmless and obscure, asking only to repay good for evil.

One morning the young birds deserted the nest.

Then, alone once more, they resumed their former existence in the dark hollow of the old oak, so solitary and silent now; they bore their children’s departure as only another of nature’s inevitable necessities. They seldom stirred from home now, seeing hardly a soul except a couple of old friends sometimes on Sabbath days; as of old, they held long, long talks of nights with the moon. Perched side by side on the eaves, their dark shapes threw long black shadows across the roof; there they sat stiff and still, save when, from time to time, they spread their wings, swooped down on their prey, then resumed the same rigid attitude. These murderous assassins were at heart the most peaceable of good citizens. It was never their way, coming home at night, to wake the other birds asleep among the foliage; no one ever heard them quarrelling or shifting the furniture or pecking at the wall, as the cuckoos, linnets, and chaffinches are so fond of doing; only, six or eight times in the night, to advertise the country folk, they would cry To-hoo! to-hoo! if next day was going to be fine, and To-whit! if it was going to rain, at regular intervals, like talking barometers.

A pair of young turtle-doves nesting on the next roof found this habit annoying, and went to the judge of the district to lodge a complaint.

The judge was a very old raven, whom years had only made more sly and artful; he was said to be a hundred, and certainly his bald pate was as shiny as a polished stone. He lived in a crevice in the rocks, alone with his own thoughts. But these thoughts, unlike most old men’s, were full of mockery for all created beings. This feathered Methuselah had seen so much in his day! and experience had only taught him to laugh at griefs and joys and everything else.

While appreciating his usefulness, he did not like Mr. Owl, and was not sorry to make things unpleasant for him; he could always dismiss the case in the end, after getting his fun out of it, if the turtles proved, as he half suspected, to have been in the wrong after all.