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First heard as a bird-call, and nothing more, by degrees it grew more and more laugh-like a long, far-reaching, ringing laugh; not the laugh I should like to hear from any person I take an interest in, but a laugh with all the gladness, unction, and humanity gone out of it a dry mechanical sound, as if a soulless, lifeless, wind-instrument had laughed. It was very curious.
While we were debating this point and seeking a possible way into the jungle which was not overarched by trees I heard a low bird-call, as I supposed, the even-song of the cross-billed cuttywink. On the instant a towering circle of dark forms sprang from the haro and at a glance I saw that we were completely surrounded by gigantic Filbertines!
Hugues uttered a bird-call, which had been one of his signals to Mathilde in their meetings. We waited, looking up and wishing the night were blacker. He repeated the cry. Something faintly whitish appeared in the dark slit which I had taken to be the Countess's window. It was a face. "Mathilde," whispered Hugues to me.
And suddenly, rich and clear as a bell, a golden cadence of notes rang out with the words: "Ah, Hast thou forgotten, That I possessed thy heart?" The King sprang lightly out of his hiding-place, and with De Launay moved on slowly and cautiously through the trees. "Ach, mein Gott!" they heard Von Glauben exclaim "That is a bird-call which will float on wings to the ears of the King!"
Ned and Welch remained near the spillway. The three boys, after whispered instructions from Ned, moved along the line passing word from man to man. It was a long and heart-breaking half hour, seemingly double that time, that followed. The man from the switches came back and whispered to Welch, and at that moment a shrill bird-call sounded in the darkness.
I came back to the exact place where I had left Bromley, or at least where I thought I had left him, but not a trace of him could I see. Of course, I dared not call, so I gave a soft whistle, as near like a bird-call as I could. Bromley reached out his hand and touched me! He was right beside me.
Soon there was a heap of feathers on the ground pigeons' feathers and pie's feathers, crane's and crow's, blackbird's and starling's. The King of Ireland's Son quickly gathered them into his bag. The falcon flew to another place and gave her bird-call again. The birds gathered, and she went amongst them, plucking their feathers.
Proudly he had withheld his private cares and troubles. He accepted from others only what he might some day hope to return; he never drew a check on the bank of sympathy without taking account of his savings! When Sandy came in sight of the beautiful old house on the hill, and when but a meadow lay between him and it, he gave a long, sweet bird-call and waited.
He picked the child up and carried him on his back, I think up to the house, and brought him in through the front door, which he locked after him. He gave the boy this clock and the bird-call to amuse him while he went upstairs and packed his trunk. He took the trunk out through the back door and down the garden to the shed there, in which he had a motor-car.
One graceful vase with a flower-stalk bending over to display its drooping blossoms, will fill him with a quiet happiness; the merry laughter of a child, the tender smile of a lover, the rugged features of a weather beaten laborer, will stir his soul to response; a few lines of poetry remembered in the midst of work, a simple song sung in the twilight, a print of some old master hanging by his bedside, a bird-call heard at sunset or the scent of evening air after rain, may so speak to his spirit that he will say, "It is enough!"
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