“‘Who? who? who?’ why, whom do you suppose, but all your cousins of Featherland, come to give you a call?” said the magpie.
Whereupon the old gentleman came forth in a very dignified way, with his wife’s spectacles on his nose, and then, because he could not see a bit, stood winking and blinking and nodding his great head, and bowing, and sticking up his feathers, like a stupid old turkey-cock, till he looked so majestic and imposing, that it was decided at once that he must come into the cedar and try the foreigner, who would not have a chance to get off with such a judge before him.
Off went the owl with a heavy flap-flap, and across the garden to where the great cedar stood; and away went the birds with such a flutter, rustle, and bustle, that the whole air whistled again as they swept away.
“Now, then, bolster-brains,” said the starling to the jackdaw, “why, you’ve been asleep!” And there, sure enough, had sat the daw with his head in his pocket, and one leg put away for the present until he wanted it again.
“Asleep! nonsense!” said the daw. “Pooh—tchah! who ever heard of such a thing? Only thinking, my dear sir—only thinking; and I think so much better with my eyes shut and the light shaded from them.”
“Why, you depraved descendant of a corvine ancestor; you grey-headed old miscreant,” exclaimed the blackbird, who had been to look at the prisoner, “what have you done with the foreigner?”
“Done,” said the daw, “done with the foreigner! No, of course I have not done with the foreigner, any more than the rest of the company have.”
“But where is he?” chorused several birds; “where is he?”
“Ah!” said Judge Shoutnight, “who-oo-oo—ere’s the prisoner?”
Over the hills and far away, with voice cleared by sucking the little birds’ eggs, and crying “Cuckoo,” till the far-off woods rang back the echo from their golden green sides; and still on and on flew the sweet-voiced bird, crying that summer had come again with its hedge-side flowers and sweet-scented gales, bonny meadows, golden with the glossy buttercups, while nodding cowslips peeped from their verdant beds. “Cuckoo!” cried the bird, and away he flew again over the rich green pasture, where the lowing cows lazily browsed amongst the rich cream-giving grass, or crouched in their fresh, sweet banqueting-hall, and idly ruminated with half-shut eyes, flapping their great widespread ears to get rid of some early fly. And, still rejoicing in his liberty, the bird cried “Cuckoo! cuckoo!” over vale and lea.