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Updated: June 2, 2025
A fine place was Greenlawn, for there the birds had it all their own way; not a nest was touched; not a gun was ever seen; and as to powder, the rooks up in the lime-trees never smelt it in their lives; but built their great awkward nests, and punched the lawn about till the grubs used to hold consultations together, and at last determined to emigrate, but as no one would come out of the ground to make a start, any more than a mouse could be found bold enough to put the bell on the cat's neck as told in the old fable, the grubs stopped there year after year, and had a very, very hard time of it.
At last the swift-winged bird darted upwards, and hovering for a moment over the poor heron, who cried out with fear, darted down with a rush, and went so close that he rustled through the quill feathers of the heron; and so swift was the dart he made, that he went down down far enough before he could stop himself, and then when he looked up again, he saw that the heron had risen so high that there was no chance of catching him again; so off he flew, and perched in the cedar-tree at Greenlawn, where he sat cleaning and pruning his feathers, and sharpening his ugly hooked beak till it had such a point that it would have been a sad day for the poor bird who came in his clutches; while his master, who had lost sight of him, was wandering away far enough off, whistling to him to come back to his perch.
However, he was not left there long in peace, for the birds of Greenlawn did not like such visitors; and the first notice they had of the stranger was from Specklems, the starling, who flew up into the tree, and then out again as though a wasp had stuck in his ear. "Chur-chair-chark," he shouted, flying round and round, spitting and sputtering, and making his head look like a hedgehog.
And then such a chorus broke forth that the whole of Greenlawn was in a state of alarm, and called a meeting in the cedar to know what was the matter. "There's somebody shot," said Mr Specklems, the starling. "Nonsense," said the thrush; "there was no pop. It must be something much worse than that." "Send some one to ask," said the jackdaw.
Even the master of Greenlawn opened his window and looked out and wondered, and at last crabby old Todkins, the gardener, opened his window, and even called the birch-broom boy up to listen; but they could not make out what the noise was. Nobody knew, and at last they began to be like the birds, rather frightened; for it was such a wild, dreadful cry as they had never heard before.
As to the starlings, they came home by scores to the warm, thick cedar, and there they whistled and chattered until the moon began to shine, when they, too, went off to sleep; and so, wherever there was a snug, warm spot at Greenlawn, the birds came back in the cold wintry nights to sleep flying far-off in the day-time, but always returning at night.
And no end of mischief he did, for as is always the case when one person does a foolish thing, plenty more begin to follow the bad example; and so one bird after another took up the cry, till it rang all over Greenlawn that spring had come; and the birds set to work in such a hurry to repair last year's damaged nests or to make new ones.
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