After the cruel blunder was done, which was the fault of neither bird nor beast nor man (by intention), and the question as to who should act the part of clerk at the last sad burial rites was raised, it was the lark who volunteered, though it is to be supposed that his heart was breaking.
"Who will be the clerk?
'I,' said the lark,
'If it's not in the dark,
And I will be the clerk.'"
Now, why the lark should object to doing this very solemn service for his dead friend the robin, if it should happen to be "dark," we cannot tell. Perchance he really couldn't act the part of a clerk at night on account of his family having been forbidden, centuries and centuries ago, to lean any more against the moon in the first quarter. It used to be a habit of theirs to sing that way, and that is how they came by the crescent on their breast. The gods made up their minds that if all the larks in the world took to leaning their breasts against the moon all at one time it would result in toppling the old moon over. The meadow-lark being the last of the family of larks to obey the command, flew away with the shadow of the crescent under his throat. Anybody can see it for himself in plain sight. So, as intimated, the lark at the funeral, remembering that he couldn't have a moon to lean against, refused to do the part asked of him, if the ceremony occurred after dark. Though, come to think of it, this legend about the crescent must be of very recent date, for the lark of the ballad could have been no other than the English skylark, which has no crescent. But the moon has a crescent, and so has our meadow-lark, and so, if there be a grain of truth in the ballad and the legend, our dear singer must have been spirited across the sea for that special occasion.
Our interest in this old ballad of Cock Robin would have died before it began had we not been informed of the whole affair with such precision as to details.
For the benefit of those who doubt the event having ever occurred "within the memory of man" and birds, we will refer our readers to the inscription on a certain very old tomb-stone in Aldermary Churchyard, England. If they do not find a single reference to Cock Robin and the lark which acted the part of clerk at the funeral, it will be because they have left their specs at home. Is is not a well-known fact that tombstones tell no falsehoods?
Thinking all these things very calmly over, it occurs to us that, after all, any other of the singing birds we have mentioned in this book might be as well fitted to act the part allotted to the lark as that bird himself. The plain, everyday facts are, it was a poet who reported the affair, and he was at his wit's end to find a word to rhyme with "clerk," and a clerk he must have at a funeral of that date. Now the English tongue, wherever it is spoken, is a curious language. It seems ready made to suit any figure, stout or slim, big or little. The poet knew that any person of good sense, accustomed to rhyming, would read the word "clerk" to sound like "dark." Hence the immortal rhyme,
"'I,' said the lark,
'If it be not in the dark,
And I will be clerk.'"