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This copse has always been a favourite with birds, and it is not uncommon to see a pheasant about it, sometimes within gunshot of the gardens, while the call of the partridges in the evening may now and then be heard from the windows. But though frequently visited by wood-pigeons, they did not seem to make any stay till now when this party arrived. There were eight of them.
Along the margin are scattered old beech trees, and a wilderness of long grass and flowers, where wood-pigeons, thrushes, pheasants, crows, jays, and all the smaller birds of the gardens may be seen sunning themselves. The narrow end or "stick" of the "fan," near the road, is leased to a cricket club, and cut off from the greater area by a belt of young plantation.
'How can I help weeping at the task set me by the king. For he says, if I fail to do it, I shall die a horrible death. 'Oh, there is really nothing to cry about, answered the wood-pigeon soothingly. 'I am the king of the wood-pigeons, whose life you spared when you were hungry.
The beautiful wind-anemones are gone, too tender and lovely for so rude an earth; but the wild hyacinths droop their blue bells under the wood, and the cowslips rise in the grass. The nightingale sings without ceasing; the soft 'coo-coo' of the dove sounds hard by; the merry cuckoo calls as he flies from elm to elm; the wood-pigeons rise and smite their wings together over the firs.
A party of the peewits, who had been watching ever so far away, thought they saw a stir and a movement in the woods; and presently out came one of the captains of the wood-pigeons with two hundred of his soldiers, and they flew over the border into King Kapchack's country and began to forage in one of his wheat-fields, where the corn was ripe.
On dry ground, underneath orange-trees covered with blossom, we lunched and lay down: of flowers, except wild ones, there were none, nor any attempt at cultivation; the terraces were dense in greenery and shade, interlaced with branches, intersected by streamlets, perfumed with orange flowers; water murmured; nightingales answered each other from every corner; wood-pigeons cooed content; most musical of all, the bulbul's throbbing, passionate note not loud was heard for the first time.
She had gone down with the old brown pitcher, coeval with herself, to the spring for water; and while it was trickling, and making a tinkling music, she sat down on the ground. The air was so still that she heard the distant wood-pigeons cooing; and round about her the bees were murmuring busily among the clustering heath.
"Will you have that knife with you while you are asleep?" asked Gerda, looking at it in great fright. "I always sleep with the knife by me," said the robber-girl. "No one knows what may happen. But now tell me again all about little Kay, and why you went out into the world." Then Gerda repeated her story over again, while the wood-pigeons in the cage over her cooed, and the other pigeons slept.
Be that as it may, I should be the last to accuse any one of disloyalty without evident proof; be that as it may, the stir and commotion grew so great among the wood-pigeons, that presently the news of it reached King Kapchack.
"Why you knew, didn't you your Aunt Harriet must have told you about how our folks came up here from Connecticut in 1763, on horseback! Connecticut was an old settled place then, compared to Vermont. There wasn't anything here but trees and bears and wood-pigeons.
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