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Even as his gray locks swept the page, a thrush fluttered down and lighted gently on the bald crown, beginning to sing so sweetly that Gigi held his breath. All this the boy saw in that first glimpse before he and the dog parted the bushes and came out into the clearing. In that instant everything changed. The dog gave a sharp bark of pleasure.
"Were you listening to that dear thrush?" asked Sylvia, as she jumped from the boat. "I was, and have been for half an hour. The fellow's staying powers are something marvelous." The speaker brought a hand around from his back, prepared to meet his niece, whom he scrutinized without a change of expression. She possessed herself not only of the hand, but his arm, and deliberately kissed his cheek.
But this is more than can be hoped for; the listener must be content with hearing two, or at the most three, of the species singing together, and trust his memory to make the necessary comparison. The song of the wood thrush is perhaps the most easily set apart from the rest, because of its greater compass of voice and bravery of execution.
Near at hand, throned among the purple flowers above their heads, a thrush was pouring out the rapture that thrilled his tiny life. The whole world pulsed to the one great melody the universal, wordless song. Only the man and the woman were silent as intruders in a sacred place. Anne moved at last. She looked up very steadily, and spoke. "It seems like holy ground," she said.
Thrush could see it," he had observed, laying down the brick he had taken up to add to the tower just before his father had spoken. "He would be pleased." The words had been lifted out on a sigh, the sigh of the wonder-worker who had achieved his mission. And then they had talked of Mr. Thrush, sitting carefully, almost motionless, beside the tower, and speaking softly "for fear."
"Well, I don't know, Kitty," he said slowly. "That is a stunning sort of dress you have on not so pretty, though, as that old blue muslin you used to wear last summer and your hair is pretty good. But you look rather disdainful and, after all, I believe I prefer Thrush Hill Kitty." How like Jack that was. He never thought me really pretty, and he is too honest to pretend he does.
We walked on and on, determined to come every day; and we settled that if we were accosted by any one, or if our innocent business were demanded, Francesca should ask, 'Does Mrs. Macstronachlacher live here, and has she any new-laid eggs? Soon the gates of the Farm appeared in sight. A speckle-breasted thrush perched on a corner of the grey wall and poured his heart out.
Yet this small chick, every day at the approach of evening, would retire to the darkest corner of the dining room, and, concealed under a piece of furniture, would continue uttering its evening song for an hour or longer at short intervals, and rendering it so perfectly that I was greatly surprised to hear it; for a thrush or other songster at the same period of life, when attempting to sing, only produces a chirping sound.
The old man pointed out that it was a felt or fieldfare, a thrush nearly as big as the mistle-thrush but different in colour, and he said that it was a bird that came to England in flocks in winter from no man knows where, far off in the north, and always went away before breeding-time.
'When will he come home to me again? Yet still he came not! Then her brave heart gave way. In vain the other birds tried to comfort her; she could not be comforted, for he she so dearly loved 'was not. 'Do not grieve, do not grieve cheer thee, che-eer thee, sang the Robin, as he perched beside her. Or the Thrush tried to advise, saying, 'Don't fret, don't fret; 'tis a pity, 'tis a pity!
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