Tales of the birds

by W. Warde Fowler

When Molly learnt that her Harold was actually going to leave her, and that in a few days she would see the last of him for a long time to come, her whole life seemed to be going to change. It was as if her boat had suddenly sprung a leak, and was sinking away from beneath her. The village, the bay, the beach, the lanes, could never be the same without Harold. She had been used to lean on him, to rest her whole being against his; and she did not know that even boys and girls, like men and women, must lose the props they make for themselves, and yet contrive somehow to stand without their help. Seeing her sorrowful eyes, and wishing to see them bright again, rather than feeling with her in her pain, he had given her the pigeon; and now the cruel falcon’s talons had torn her sensitive little heart almost as ruthlessly as the bird’s tender breast.

Harold came out of the cottage door and looked at the weather. It was a still spring morning with a silky mist lying about the hills, which would clear away if the slightest breeze got up.

“I’ll go to-day, Molly,” he said, “and you shall come with me if you like. We’ll have one jolly day together before I go to the training-ship. The tide runs eastward up till twelve, and will bring us back easily in the afternoon. Come down to the beach in half an hour: I’ll have the boat ready, and some bread and cheese. You ask your mother for some cold tea.” And Harold, delighted with his plan, and with his mind as cloudless as a sunny summer’s day, ran off to get his boat ready, hardly finding time to give Molly the kiss that her uplifted grateful face demanded of him.

In half an hour she and the boat were both ready, and they passed out of the little bay, she steering and he rowing, as the mist began to lift from the curving outlines of the downs. It was very restful to Molly to glide over that silky sea, with the gulls quietly sailing above, the breeze from the land just breathing on her, and Harold’s bright face opposite to her; and for a while she was perfectly happy, thinking of nothing. But suddenly the sound of a big gun reached them, and looking out to sea they saw the distant masts of a huge ironclad, and a white curl of smoke, which had already risen high in air by the time the sound reached them. As they looked, another white puff, and, as it slowly rose, another faint boom. Harold’s eyes sparkled, and he rested on his oars, and turned to watch the ship.

“I expect it’s the Monarch,” he said. “I know she’s cruising about here. Just think, Molly! Some day perhaps you’ll hear the big guns and I shall be on board. And thinking of you,” he added, as his face came round to look at Molly with a look half of pity, half of pride. But there was a big tear slowly slipping down Molly’s brown cheek. The thought of Harold’s going had come over her like a cloud, and the rain was beginning to fall. For a moment he felt angry; plunged the oars into the water, and rowed on strongly with just a faint flush on his cheek. Then seeing her face turned away, so that he should not see the tear, and the little mouth compressed and chin held firm so as to keep another from escaping, he shipped his oars, jumped across to her, and with boyish energy gave her a host of rough kisses on each cheek. Then he took her face between his hands and said—

“Molly, don’t you be silly. If you’re going to cry every time you hear a big gun fired I’ll sail right away to the other side of the world and marry some one over there. But if you’ll be a good girl I’ll come back some day and be a coastguard, and then we can live in one of those cottages by the flagstaff, and you shall polish the windows and the floors till they shine like mother’s china. And when I get to Portsmouth I’ll have a likeness taken in uniform, and you shall have it to hang up in your own room. Now then, let go, silly, or we shall be on the rocks!”

He disengaged himself from the fervid embrace in which Molly had caught him, and was back in his seat, pulling hard into the current of the tide again, which was now carrying them fast along the foot of the cliffs. They rounded one little headland, and then another, and presently found themselves under a deep curve of the cliffs, here some three or four hundred feet high, quite inaccessible from above, where the rocks were almost perpendicular, but broken somewhat at the base by the action of the sea. These cliffs—the red cliffs as they were called from their colour—were the favourite breeding place of many birds, and they were dotted all over, as the boat rounded the headland, with kittiwakes, guillemots, razorbills, and other sea-birds, who sailed up into the air, or far away to sea, with loud cries, as the intruders came nearer. Harold paid them little attention, but made straight across the curve towards the opposite headland, where the cliff seemed almost to beetle over, and where the shadow, as they had been rowing eastwards and it was still morning, lay heavy and black over the water. Here, he knew, the peregrine falcon built its nest nearly every year: for the nest could only be reached from the sea, and no hardy climber had as yet attempted to get at it by that way. Once the male bird had been shot, and for two or three years no nest had been built; but another pair had found the place out, and this year had been so far lucky enough to escape the guns of collectors and gamekeepers.

Harold put in to the shore, and moored the boat to a stone. No falcon was in sight. He told Molly to lie down in the boat quite still; and stretching himself beside her on his back, he fed her with bread and cheese, keeping a sharp lookout all the while. For a long time they lay there, and it was a happy time for both of them. The gentle sigh of the waves daintily lapping the stones, and the call of the sea-birds overhead, were all the sounds they heard, except the occasional distant boom of a gun, which still sent a little pang through Molly’s tender heart. But she thought of the coastguard’s cottage, and all the time that was to be passed before she could be polishing its floors and windows for Harold melted away before that vision of happiness, which stood out like a distant peak when all the nearer hills and vales are hidden in a morning mist.

So they lay there in the boat, waiting for the falcon to appear, for it was hopeless to try and discover the nest until one of the old birds should return to it with food for the young. Every now and then Molly’s rosy mouth opened to receive a bit of bread and cheese, offered it on the point of Harold’s clasp-knife, which his coastguard friend had given him; but at last there was no more, and lulled by the gentle motion of the boat, she fell into a peaceful doze. She awoke, feeling Harold’s hand on her mouth.

“Don’t speak, Molly,” he whispered; “look there! That’s the wicked thing that killed your Snowdrop.”