“She simply said, ‘The bird must know that I don’t mean to do any harm.’”
“No doubt she’s right,” said I. “I don’t suppose there’s an animal in the whole of creation that doesn’t recognise the maternal instinct when it sees it.”
That was all very well while there were only eggs to be reckoned with. But when one morning Bellwattle went to the nest and found five black little heads, like five little Hottentots grown old and grizzled, with shrivelled tufts of grey hair, there was no containing her.
She clapped her hands. She danced up and down and—
“Oh, the dears!” she cried. “Oh, the little dears! I must give them something to eat. What will they eat?”
I looked at Cruikshank. I had come round that morning to count his rosebuds with him—a weakness of his to which he always succumbs. He tells me it is the only way he can justify his use of the knife. I looked at him and he looked at me.
“This is going too far,” he whispered. “Can’t we put a stop to it?”
“Leave it to me,” said I, and Bellwattle, hearing our whispers, turned round and stared at us.
“What is it?” she asked.
“We were talking,” said I.