“The rooks,” he said at last. “I don’t hear them. What has become of the rookery in the elms?”
“They’ve gone,” she said. “Ten years ago. Michael felt it dreadfully. Even now he can hardly speak of it. I hope, Father, you will never reproach him about it.”
“Did he shoot them?” asked the old man in a hollow voice.
“No, no. He loved them, just as you did, but when he installed the Power Station he put it behind the elm wood to screen it from the house, and he did not remember, no one remembered, the rookery. You see rooks build higher than any other birds, and that was not taken into account in the radiation. At first everything seemed all right. The old birds did not appear to notice it. Even the smallest birds could pass through the current it was so slight. But when the spring came it proved too much for the fledgelings. They died as they were hatched out in the nest. Then the old birds made the most fearful outcry, and left the place.”
“There has always been a rookery at Marcham,” said John, his voice shaking with anger. “I suppose I shall hear of Michael shooting the foxes next.”
Serena did not answer. She looked blankly at him.
Presently John asked that his chair might be wheeled up the steep path through the wood to the little clearing at the top. Michael eagerly offered to draw the chair himself, but John refused. He had been distant towards his son since he had heard about the rookery.
Serena, with the help of a gardener, conveyed him gently to the heathery knoll, just breaking into purple.