All eyes were strained upwards towards the part of the tree where its great branches diverged, and whence the warbling came. Nothing could be discerned. Suddenly the air changed. It was a blackbird, with its fine flowing notes. Again, and it was a nightingale.
“Ah! that is the nightingale,” said George Woodburn.
“No,” insisted Mr. Clavering, “but it is an amazing imitation. Every note correct. Hark to that—‘jug, jug, jug, more sweet than all;’ which the printer of Coleridge’s Poems so provokingly printed ‘more sweet than ale.’ It is most wonderful!”
But the wonder did not cease, but increased. From the nightingale’s most impassioned song, the music, or whistling, advanced into notes, strange, weird, unearthly, into a very triumph and intoxication of wondrous sounds.
“That is surely like the music of birds in heaven!” exclaimed Miss Heritage.
“What can it be?” continued Mr. Clavering, going round the tree, and peering up on all sides. “If I were a lad again, I would be up in a twink, and find it out.”
One or two youths were throwing off their coats, to mount the tree, when the droll face of Tom Boddily peeped out from among the ivy, between the great diverging arms of the tree, and said,—“You need not climb, gentlemen, it is only me, Tom Boddily!” In another moment he was seen descending with the agility of a monkey amongst the ivy, and down he dropped lightly in the midst of the company. All crowded eagerly round him, to learn by what means he made such sounds. Tom pulled out a simple lark-whistle, such as village boys use or used, but without any such magical power. Besides this little tin box, perforated with a single hole, he produced also a small tin pipe, not more than four inches long, and by the aid of these, he showed them how he executed such artistic music.
“How in the world did you learn that, Tom?” asked Mr. Clavering.
“I learnt it when I was sogering, sir.”
“You must have found a very extraordinary master,” said Sir Emanuel.