She stood motionless with surprise and horror—she did not dart to the window as one would have expected—ready almost to throw herself out of it in fruitless pursuit of her favourite—she stood perfectly still, as if turned into stone. But the expression on her face was so strange and unnatural that Miss King felt frightened.
"Hoodie," she exclaimed. "Hoodie, child, don't stand like that. Come to the window and call to your bird. Perhaps he will hear you and fly back."
She said it more to rouse Hoodie out of the depth of her misery than because she really thought the bird would return, for in the bottom of her heart she feared much that it had truly flown away, and that once it felt itself out in the open air its natural instinct of freedom would prevent its returning to its cage.
Hoodie started.
"Come back? Do you think he'll come back, Cousin Magdalen?" she exclaimed, and rushing to the window, and leaning out so far that Magdalen was obliged to hold her for fear she should fall over, she gave the soft clear call which her cousin had taught her—over and over again, till, tired and out of breath, she drew in her head and looked up in Magdalen's face despairingly.
"He won't come," she said, "he won't come. P'raps he's flied away too far to hear me. P'raps he can hear me but he doesn't want to come. Oh dear, oh dear, what shall I do? My bird, my bird—you always said he would fly away if he heard me speak c'oss, and I did speak c'oss, dedful c'oss. Oh! what shall I do?"
Hoodie sank down on the floor—a little heap of tears and misery. Hec and Duke flung their arms around her, beseeching her not to cry so, but there was no comfort for Hoodie.
"It was my own fault," she kept repeating, "my own fault for speaking so c'oss. The bird will never come back. Oh no, Hec and Duke, dear Hec and Duke, it isn't no good kissing me. I'll never, never be happy again, and it's my own fault."
It was impossible not to be sorry for her. Magdalen felt almost ready to burst into tears herself. She took Hoodie up in her arms and tried to comfort her.
"I don't think you should quite lose heart about birdie, Hoodie. He may come back again, once he has had a good fly. We must keep the window open, and you must keep calling to him every now and then, in the way he is used to. And perhaps it would be a good plan to go out in the garden and call—he may perhaps have flown up among the trees at the other side."