“Go on,” said the Robin, “or you’ll never get to the end of your speech. Why do you want to eat fruit? Caterpillars are much better.”
“Order, order,” cried the President. “Trrrrr-lira-lira-trrr.” The Blackbird resumed the thread of his argument.
“I do not care,” he said, “to notice unseemly interruptions at a moment when such painful thoughts have obtruded themselves on my mind. I will proceed in the next place to show that man is mischievous. I need not dwell on this point; the fact is known to you all. The word is far too mild. Which of us has not lost a nest, or seen our young caught and killed, either by man himself, or by his parasite the cat? They are the only two animals who kill for the pleasure of killing. Of the two, as you know, man is far the worst; he is more cruel and more awkward than a cat. A cat is agile, nimble, even beautiful to look at, terrible as she is; and she does not steal the nests which we have taken such infinite pains to build. A kitten is a pretty and even a harmless little creature; but the young of man is horrible to contemplate. What dreadful noises he makes! What a contemptible object he appears! Though compelled by nature to keep to the ground and go along on two stumps, he will sometimes climb trees if he can but see a chance of doing us a mischief. You hear the awkward creature crashing through the branches; you are forced to fly for your life, and to leave your young and eggs to the monster’s mercy! I will not harrow your feelings further, but will content myself with the simple assertion that cats are far better.
“I now come to the third point. Man is malevolent. Man, that is (as some of you may not understand the word), is evilly disposed towards us. His evil deeds are the result of an evil will. I see you are getting impatient, so I will only give you a single instance of this, which shall at the same time be a crushing proof. As I was enjoying myself in a gooseberry bush a day or two ago, before the meanness of man displayed itself in those malicious nets, I heard the farmer’s wife singing to her baby as she sat on the seat under the pear-tree close by me. I kept very quiet, as you may imagine, and heard all she said. Fancy my horror when I heard her begin—
“Four-and-twenty blackbirds, baked in a pie.”
Thus you see from his earliest years—from the egg, I might have said, had Fate destined him for a higher sphere than that he occupies—is Man taught malevolence towards the birds. His mother whispers the poison even into his baby ears; he grows up thinking of baked blackbirds; and though no doubt in later life he prefers what he (luckily for us) calls bigger game, the malevolence of his mind towards us singing-birds is ever on the increase. Such then is Man: mean, mischievous, malevolent; a creature that might indeed, in many ways be our equal if he could but restrain his evil instincts; but as he is, degraded, demoralized, and dangerous.”
This burst of eloquence took the company by surprise; they never suspected the Blackbird of possessing such genius. There was general applause, which was broken in upon however by an unlucky incident. The Robin, when the Blackbird stopped, had instantly taken possession of the orator’s bough, a prominent one directly below that of the president. The Sparrow, seeing this, and being always ready to pick a quarrel with the Robin, had flown to the bough with angry screams, and was trying to turn out the new orator. Robin fought as might be expected of him, the other birds were preparing to join in, the President was calling for order, and whistling his very shrillest, when up came the Swallow once more. She preferred to be absent during the speeches, but looked in, she said, to see if their wits were getting sharpened.
“What!” she exclaimed, “quarrelling already! Ah, I see, no wits to sharpen, so try claws and beaks instead!”
“Where’s your repartee, Philip?” said the Blue Tit. But before the repartee was forthcoming the Swallow was gone again.
The Swallow’s remark had the result of calming the troubled waters; and as the Robin had been first on the bough, the President called on him to speak.