Out of the strawberry beds, hustling and chuckling, there arose a whole school of youthful blackbirds, who had been having their first lessons in the art of sucking ripe fruit. The elders set off first, and the young ones followed unwillingly, one or two bolder spirits even yet dallying in the further corner of the bed.
The Member hardly seemed enthusiastic; he had been invited from London to eat strawberries, not to see the birds eat them. The Poet half divined his thoughts: “Plenty for all,” he cried; “we share and share alike here.”
They began to search; but alas! wherever a ripe fruit betrayed itself among the leaves, its juicy flesh had been cut open by a blackbirds bill. A few minutes’ hunt had but scanty result, and the Poet became the more uncomfortable as he caught sight of Joseph Bates’s face, wearing an expression of taciturn wisdom, which suddenly emerged from behind a row of peas and disappeared again.
“Poet,” said the Member, raising himself and straightening an aching back, “if it’s share and share alike, does that mean that each of us is only to count as one blackbird? I say, my good fellow, you really must net this bed if we’re to get anything out of it.” In this suggestion he was warmly seconded by Bessie, aghast at finding her treasure slipping from her so fast.
The Poet was a little disconcerted; but he faced it out bravely, and with the obstinacy of his northern blood:
“The unnetted blackhearts ripen dark,
All thine, along the garden wall,”
he quoted “No; I will net no fruit in this garden.”
“Then it will be all theirs, and no mistake,” said the Member. “Poet, I shall go back to London and found a Society for the Protection of Man from the Birds. The plain fact is that you have too many birds here; they have increased, are increasing, and ought to be diminished.”
“Such language from you—you,” cried the Poet, half angry and half amused: “look at all the work they have done for me this spring in clearing off all manner of pests: think of all the songs they have sung for me! Are they to have no reward?”