However, only now was the fighting to begin. The thrushes pecked the blackbirds, and the blackbirds flew at the thrushes, and both beat back the little redbreasts and tomtits.
"Rascals!" said Turly; "they are every bit as bad as the crows!"
"Oh!" cried Terry, "to think they can sing so sweetly and behave so cruelly!"
"I suppose it's only their way," said Turly. "I think birds have to be cruel, or they couldn't live. See them picking up the worms, and smashing the snail-shells against the stones!"
"And men are cruel too," said Terry. "They kill the lambs—"
Here their talk was interrupted by an unusual and startling sight. The air became suddenly darkened by a moving cloud of winging sea-gulls high overhead, circling above the tops of the trees, ever increasing in number till their wide wings seemed to be almost laced together.
Each time the great circle they had marked for themselves was travelled they descended a little lower towards the earth.
"How lovely!" cried Terry. "They are really coming down to us!"
"They are wanting their dinner," said Walsh, the steward, coming to where the children were standing with their faces turned up to the skies.
"Oh, do you think so?" cried Terry. "And where can we get crumbs enough for such a number?"