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"Look here, lads," he said; "that horse must have eight hours' rest 'fore tackling her load, and a stop on the way home, so let's load up at once with the best coarse white we can do it in half an hour or so then you two can go rabbiting or bird-nesting, or what you like, while I have a pipe and a sleep in the sand till it's time to get something to eat and fetch the horse and go."
She remembered with disgust how overgrown that boy was, and how his stockings were darned at the knees; and how she had seen patches of new cloth on his trousers, and had heard her aunt Maria say that he was so hard on his clothes on account of his passion for bird-nesting, that it was all his mother could do to keep him always decent.
"It's somewhat about thirty years since I went bird-nesting, and hang me, if a tight jacket and spurs are the best equipment for climbing a tree; but up I went, and, amidst a running fire of laughter and quizzing, reached the branch and brought it down safely. "Inez took especial care to avoid me the rest of the evening. We did not meet until breakfast the following morning.
Suddenly one morning, in the height of the bird-nesting season, the street would swarm with countrymen tramping up to the barracks on the hill, and back, with bundles of clothes and unblackened boots dangling.
And for that matter, I could keep my knees straight, bend forward from the hips, and touch, not the tips of my fingers, but the points of my elbows, to the ground. And as for bird-nesting well, I only wish the twentieth-century boy could see us. But we made no collections of eggs. We ate them. I remember but I out-run my story. First let me tell of Lop-Ear and our friendship.
How could she have thought for a moment of a bird-nesting sort of boy? She was so thankful that the baby was a girl. Maria, as sometimes happens, had a rather inverted system of growth. With most, dolls come first, then boys; with her, dolls had not come at all.
On his last bird-nesting excursion he happened, fortunately or unfortunately, to shove a half-hatched egg down his throat; and, the embryo bird nearly choking him, his poultry-fancying propensity was transformed into an inveterate dislike towards the entire penguin tribe a slightly lucky mistake for the creatures in question, as thereby the list of their enemies became decreased by one.
Many a toime we childern went moochin' in thuck wood nutting and bird-nesting. Though I never did hold wi' taking more'n one egg out of a nest, and I allus did wet my vinger avore I touched the moss on a wren's nest. They do say as the little bird 'ull never go back if ye doant." His mind went roaming among childhood's memories and his eyes took on a dreaming look.
Two or three clutches of these eggs, with some of the splendid purple-red kestrels' eggs, and sparrow-hawks of bluish white, blotched with rich chestnut, make a very handsome show after a day's bird-nesting on the hills. The first eggs are laid very early, sometimes by the second week in April. A nest recently analysed consisted mainly of green ash taken from faggots and cuttings in the wood.
"Well, he did, a bit: then he and Jem Morris went off bird-nesting." "I'll give it him when I see him! Where's Cicely?" "She's somewhere," said Will, looking round the cottage, as if he expected to see her in some corner. "I reckon I could have told thee so much. Did Mistress Wade find you?" "She was down at the brook: but she went after Cis."
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