Gay-Neck

by Dhan Gopal Mukerji

"Yes, lots of them," my friend reminded me, "go north this time of the year. We frightened a whole flock in the trees overhead. That's all. In the future don't take every monkey yell for the roar of a tiger."

Fortunately we reached home shortly without any other incident to upset my complacency.

The next morning Radja went to his duties at his ancestral temple while I sought the roof and uncaged my birds. At first they were bewildered, but seeing me near them with my hands full of buttered seeds, they settled down to breakfast without any ado. Pretty nearly all of that day we spent on the roof. I dared not leave them by themselves very long lest the strangeness of their surroundings upset them.

In the course of the week that followed the two birds made themselves at home in Ghatsila, and moreover became extremely intimate with each other. There was no doubt now that I had acted wisely in isolating them from the rest of the flock. About the eighth day of our stay, Radja and I were surprised to see Gay-Neck fly in pursuit of his mate. She flew on, but at a low altitude. He followed. Seeing him catch up to her, she rose and turned back. He too did the same and followed after. Again she rose. But this time he balked and began to circle the air beneath her. However, I felt that he was regaining his confidence. At last Gay-Neck, the paragon of pigeons, was healing himself of his fear and of his horror of the heavens; he was once more at home in the sky.

The next morning the birds flew higher and played with each other. Gay-Neck again refused to go all the way and he began to come down hastily instead of circling in the air below her. That puzzled me, but Radja, who was a keen person, explained. "A cloud, large as a fan, has come over the sun. Its shadow fell so suddenly that Gay-Neck thought it was his enemy. Wait until the cloud passes and then——"

Radja was right. In a few more seconds the sun came out and its light dripped from Gay-Neck's wings once more. At once he stopped coming downwards and began to make circles in the air. His mate too, who had been coming down to keep him company, waited for him a hundred feet or so above. Now Gay-Neck rose, beating his wings like an eagle freed from his cage. The sunlight made pools of colour about him as he swerved and swung up and up. Soon instead of following, he led his mate. Thus they ascended the sky—he healed of fear completely, and she ravished by his agility and power.

The next morning both of them made an early start. They flew far and very long. For a while they were lost beyond the mountains as if they slid over their peaks and down the other side. They were gone at least an hour.

At last they returned about eleven o'clock bearing each in his beak a large straw. They were going to build a nest for the laying of eggs. I thought I would take them home, but Radja insisted that we should stay at least a week longer.

During that week every day we spent some hours in the more dangerous jungle across the river, taking the two pigeons with us in order to release them in the dense forest hardly five miles from Radja's house. Gay-Neck forgot everything save testing his sense of direction and making higher flights. In other words, love for his mate and the change of place and climate healed him of fear, that most fell disease.

Here let it be inscribed in no equivocal language that almost all our troubles come from fear, worry, and hate. If any man catches one of the three, the other two are added unto it. No beast of prey can kill his victim without frightening him first. In fact no animal perishes until its destroyer strikes terror into its heart. To put it succinctly, an animal's fear kills it before its enemy gives it the final blow.