Then came grace.
CHAPTER XVI
The finches were the worst behaved, though the tomtits and the nuthatches ran them very close in the noise they made. As for the blackbirds and thrushes, they seemed to think the place belonged to them; much more so than the starlings, who kept to themselves, and apparently cared for nothing in earth or heaven. The wrens and hedge-robins contributed their fair share to the chorus, but nothing could beat the fanfare of the finches, which was almost more than ears only accustomed hitherto to the tiny song of a caged cock-canary could endure.
The aged Haberland in his felt slippers knew them all apart. The old gardener's office had become a sinecure, as he was too infirm now to do anything more than sprinkle the lawn with the hose. Old Haberland knew exactly which birds built their nests in the trees and which on the ground, at what hour they began to sing, and the best post of observation to take up if you wanted to study their habits and plumage.
It was horrible that the squirrels must be shot. She could almost have hated the old fellow when she saw him going out with his rifle under his coat to wage war against those jolly little beasts. For he declared that the artful little robbers knew the gun when they saw it, and scurried off and outwitted him if they caught sight of it. He wasn't on friendly terms either with the jays and magpies. His favourite was the shy green woodpecker, which he had coaxed to nest in the park. Then there was that curiosity, the parti-coloured hoopoe, so tame that it came fearlessly at all hours of the day close up to the castle, sang its "Hu-tu-tu," and then with his crooked sabre of a bill cut the worms out of the grass.
Since the world began there could not have been such radiant glorious mornings as these. When you put your head out of doors at five o'clock, the cool purple mist wrapped you about like a royal mantle. Over the pond, where the reeds and rushes seemed to grow up in a night, forced by invisible hands, lay sunlit vapours which lifted gradually and rose into the sky in luminous columns. Vapour arose everywhere. Often it looked as if white fires had been kindled on the slopes of the lawn; clouds of light rolled heavily from the glittering fronds as if satiated with the dew they had absorbed. Oh, what mornings!
Then, when things burst into flower, you never grew tired of wandering about, filling apron and basket with great sprays of snowy and purple lilac and trails of golden chain, till you were almost drowned in a sea of blossom. The mad joy of the dogs was indescribable, when their lovely young mistress appeared smiling on the garden steps in her white blouse and short skirt, armed with scissors and shears. Patiently they waited for her, whining and yelping if she came later than they expected; for they had given her without hesitation their canine allegiance, regardless of pitying, benevolent smiles from Fräulein von Schwertfeger, whom they abhorred.
The cleverest of them all, Bevel the terrier, was not numbered among her admiring bodyguard, as he never failed to attend at the colonel's heels when he took his early morning survey of his acres. But there was Pluto, the long-eared setter, who now in the spring was out of employment, and went on his own account hunting rabbits in the park. There were Schnauzl the poodle and Bobbi the dachshund, who lived in constant state of jealous feud with each other because of her. But most beautiful of all was Regina, the huge panther-like Dane, whose left foreleg had been injured by a stone, and who, ashamed of her lameness in the daytime, always slunk out of the sight of strangers, though at night she made up for it by keeping indefatigable guard and terrifying the neighbourhood by her bay.
Indescribable, too, were the gambols of the colts in the paddock beyond the rose garden, the craving for caresses of the two-year-olds, when their sugar-squandering mistress pulled back the hurdles and stretched out her arms, to pillow on them the slender heads of her young pets.
Nothing, too, could equal the fury of the turkey-cock when the pheasants stole a march on him and got the first crumbs; though he surpassed himself in jealous rage when those idiotic ducks dared to squat on Lilly's feet as if it were a perfectly natural thing to do. So bristling with anger was he that he would sometimes peck at Pluto's drooping ears, an attention which the setter declined with a contemptuous shake of the head.