"You? You want to go with us?" asked the swallow, laughing at him scornfully. "You would soon be sick of it. It means flying, flying over land and sea, over hill and dale. Many and many a mile we fly in one journey without a rest. How do you imagine your short wings are going to support you so long as that?"
"Oh, but I should so like to go with you," the sparrow pleaded. "Couldn't you get leave for me to fly with the rest? I have such a longing for it. I must go with you."
"I believe you are mad," said the swallow. "You forget who you are."
"Oh no," said the sparrow.
But the swallow took it upon him to instruct him about his position in society.
"Don't you see," he said, "the rich merchant who lived here in the country during the summer has now moved into town, and the baron who lives on Tower Island has done the same? The painter who was staying out here is also by this time in Copenhagen; and they won't come out here again till next spring. We birds of high station act in the same way. As soon as ever we smell winter, we make our way to lands where life is more enjoyable—to the warm south. But you poor wretches must of course stay at home and suffer. That is how things are arranged in this world. It is just the same with day labourers, and cottagers, and other poor folks."
The sparrow said nothing to this long speech; but when the swallow dropped asleep in his nest, he lay awake and wept over his hard fate. He had still not quite given up hope of going with them all the same.
Next day the birds came flying from all directions, and settled down in the meadow. There were starlings and storks and swallows, besides many little singing-birds. But neither the cuckoo nor the nightingale was there, for they had left long ago. "Fall in!" commanded an old stork. He had been ten times in Egypt, and was therefore reckoned the wisest of them all.