“Tah! tah! That’s a jackdaw,” said Aleck, half aloud. “Plain enough; but that mournful wail! It must be a different kind of gull. Black-backed perhaps, with a bad cold through getting wet. I wonder whether a gull could be taught to talk! I don’t see why not. Let’s see, parrots can be taught, of course, and cockatoos learn to say a few words. So do jackdaws and starlings, but very few. Oh, yes! then there’s the raven. Uncle said he knew of one at an old country inn that used to say ‘Coming, sir,’ whenever anyone called for the ostler. Then there are those Indian birds they call Mynahs. Uncle says that some of them talk beautifully. Hallo! There he goes again! It’s just like ‘Ahoy–oy–oy–oy!’ Plain enough to deceive anyone if it came off the sea. I’ll wait till I catch sight of the gull that makes that noise, and next nesting-time I’ll watch for some of the same kind and get two or three of the young ones to bring up. If they can say what sounds something like ‘Ahoy!’ so plainly it ought to be possible to teach one to say more.”
Aleck sat and mused again, running over in his mind such gulls as he knew, and coming to the conclusion that unless it was some unusual specimen, of great vocal powers, it could not be the black-backed nor the lesser black-backed, nor the black-headed herring gull or kittiwake.
“I don’t know what it is,” he said, “but, whatever it may be, it’s a good one to talk,” and as he listened he heard the peculiar, weird, wailing cry again, sounding something like “Ahoy!”
“Gone now,” said Aleck, half aloud, as he keenly watched in the direction of the cry, which had now ceased. “It might as well have flown over this way instead of down over the cliff. Hooray! There it goes!”
He shaded his eyes to follow the steady regular course of a large bronze black bird flying close down the trough-like depression, as close to the bottom as it could keep clear of the rocks, till it reached the end, where it dipped down towards the sea and disappeared.
“Well, I’m a clever one,” cried the lad, with a scornful laugh; “lived ever since I can remember close to the sea, and been told the name of every bird that comes here in the winter and in the summer to nest, and didn’t know the cry of an old shag. Well, say that cry, for it was very different from the regular croak I know. He had been fishing, having a regular gorge, and ended by swallowing a weevil. The little wretch set up its spines, I suppose, as it was going down and stuck, making the old shag come up there to sit and cough to get rid of it. If ever I’m along with anyone who hears that noise and wants to know what it is I can tell him it’s a shag or a cormorant suffering from sore throat.”
Aleck began to use the glass again, for the cutter’s boat came into sight for a few minutes, before gliding along close in once more, to be hidden by the perpendicular cliffs.
“Gone,” he said to himself. “Well, they will not find the poor fellow, for I don’t believe they can search any better than we did. It’s very dreadful. Nice, good-looking chap; as clever as clever. Cocky and stuck-up; but what of that? Fellow gets into a uniform and has a cocked hat and a sword, it makes him feel that he is someone of consequence. How horrible, though! Comes along with the boat ashore over that press-gang kidnapping business, and the boat goes back without him. I wonder whether he was better off than I am, with a father and mother! They’ll have to know soon, and then I wonder what they’ll say!”
Aleck gave another look round, sweeping the sea, and carrying his gaze round to the land, and then starting.
“There it is again!” he said, eagerly, as his eyes rested upon the distant black and white object inland. “Come, I can get a shot at you this time,” he muttered, as, carefully keeping his eyes fixed upon the squat-looking object amongst the rocks, he slowly raised the glass. “I believe it must be a black and white rabbit. There are brown and white ones sometimes, for I’ve seen them, so I don’t see why there shouldn’t be black and white. Got you at last, my fine fellow. Ha, ha, ha,” he laughed. “How absurd! Why, it’s Eben Megg’s wife; just her face with the patch of black hair showing above that bit of rock she’s hiding behind. Why, she must be watching me. I know; poor thing, she’s watching for me to go away so that she can come and look out to sea again for poor Eben.”