After a few moments of silence the Blackbird said, “I must be going home; my young ones are not yet able to do without me.”
“Your young ones!” exclaimed the Rook, in a tone of surprise; and then he added, “Ah, you’ve had two broods, I suppose?”
“Yes,” replied the Blackbird, “and the last are still young. My first are now quite grown up.”
“I once knew a relation of yours,” said the Rook, “who hatched three broods in one year.”
“Dear me,” said the Blackbird in a tone of commiseration, “how exhausted he must have been by the time he had finished with his third family.”
“I have been told, and on the best possible 64 authority too,” said the Rook, rather mischievously, “of a pair of Blackbirds who had four families––”
“Oh, pray don’t,” said the Blackbird, as he opened out his wings as if for flight; “you make me feel quite nervous.”
The Rook gave a caw which he intended to be a sympathetic one, but there was a little falter in it, which, had he been a human being instead of a bird, might have been mistaken for a smothered laugh. The birds now rose on the wing, and together flew homewards. While passing the lake a boat and the sound of oars arrested their attention. To watch it as it went by, they settled on the lowest branch of an old beech-tree, which grew at the edge of the lake, and spread its arms over the bright waters, affording a grateful shade to boating-parties in the summer. This tree was quite an old family friend, and generation after generation had gazed at it from the old bay window––generations who had rejoiced in its first spring leaves, and regretted the fall of the last brown one in autumn. It formed a capital shelter for the birds, from whence they could see and not be seen.
Willie and Alice, their mother and father, and Mrs. 65 Barlow the nurse, were in the boat. The father was rowing, and Willie was occupying the proud position of steersman. They soon drew to land and moored the little craft under the shade of the beech-tree. Then out came little mugs, bread and butter, fruit and cake––they were actually going to have a pic-nic on the water!
Tea out of doors was an immense delight; but tea out of doors and on the water was even better, at least so thought Willie and Alice, but so did not think Nurse Barlow. She screamed each time the boat rolled, and assured them every few minutes that they would all be drowned. As far as she was concerned she couldn’t see “why Master Willie and Miss Alice couldn’t have had tea quietly in their own nursery. It was a deal better than coming out there on the water, and sitting under that tree, with all those nasty insects dropping down on them.”