XX.
A CLEVER CUCKOO.
"Hark, the cuckoo, weatherwise,
Still hiding, farther onward woos you."
The mysterious bird, around whose name cluster some strange facts as well as absurd fancies; shy and intolerant of the human race, yet bold in protecting his treasures; devoted and tender in his family relations, yet often known in the neighborhood where he passes his days as a mere "wandering voice,"—
"No bird, but an invisible thing,
A voice, a mystery,"—
this bird, the cuckoo, was a stranger to me till one happy day last June, when I came upon him where he could not escape, beside his own nest.
In returning from our daily visit to the woods that morning, my fellow-student turned down a narrow footway connecting the woods with the home-fields, and I followed. She had passed through half its length, her dog close behind her, when our eyes, ever searching the trees and bushes, fell almost at the same instant upon a nest, with the sitting bird at home. It was so near me that I could have touched it, being not more than two feet from the ground, and hardly farther from the path.
Fearing to startle the little mother, whose frightened eyes were fixed upon us, we announced our mutual discovery by a single movement of the hand, and walked quietly past without pausing. Not until we reached the open fields at the end did my comrade whisper, "a cuckoo," and our hearts, if not our lips, sang with Wordsworth, "Thrice welcome, darling of the spring," for the nest of this shy bird we hardly dared hope to see.
After the morning of our happy discovery the cuckoo path became part of our regular route home from the woods. Our first care was to dispel the fears of the bird, and accustom her to seeing us, so for several days we passed her without pausing, though we looked at her and spoke to her in low tones as we went by.