United States or Northern Mariana Islands ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
There was scarcely a light agleam in the whole village, and it is not at all a thing to be surprised at that our jackdaw lost his way and had a stumble or two into the icy pools which beset him. He did succeed at last in finding the hut in which he lived, or rather, he found the site of it, for an 18 centimetre shell had burst there in his absence and the hut was not.
The gardener was mowing it between the flower beds, and it lay behind his hissing scythe along the lawn in irregular lines. "There is the first swallow, just come in time to see the tulips, the tall May tulips which the Dutchmen used to paint." So did Evelyn think, and her eyes followed Sister Mary John's jackdaw.
There was a jackdaw's nest high up. I could see the old jackdaw looking down at me. Up above her head was a little square of sky. I did not doubt that when I got to the top I should be able to scramble out of that square on to the leads, then down by a water-spout, evading the sentries, over the garden wall to freedom.
Tying up the bag with a string, and cutting some breathing holes, I carried the captive cat away, leaving Andrew Drever to grieve over the death of Peter the jackdaw. When I rowed out to the Lydia in my little boat, the mist had melted away in the warmth of the sun.
When I arrived at Andrew Drever's house there was no one moving within, but the door was not locked, and quietly lifting the latch I went inside to find the cat Baudrons, that I might take him out to the Lydia according to my promise. I made so little noise that even the jackdaw did not seem to notice my entrance, and I looked to his cage on the side table.
Unmistakably the voice of a jackdaw, a pet bird no doubt, friendly and impudent as one always expects Jackie to be. And as I always like to learn the history of every pet daw I come across, I went down to the cottage the cry usually came from to make enquiries. The door was opened to me by a tall, colourless, depressed-looking woman, who said in reply to my question that she didn't own no jackdaw.
Mother Magpie snapped her eyes at him and went on, "Next you must lay a feather on a bit of moss, to start the walls." "Certainly, of course," screamed the Jackdaw. "I knew that came next. That is what I told the Parrot but a moment since." Mother Magpie looked at him impatiently, but she did not say anything.
Nay, she clung to the kind woman, beseeching that she might not be sent away from the only motherly tenderness she had ever known, and declaring that she would work all day and all night rather than leave her; but the more reluctance she showed, the more determined was Perronel, and she could not but submit to her fate, only adding one more entreaty that she might take her jackdaw, which was now a spruce grey-headed bird.
Bob some time afterwards told Nellie in confidence that, just then, the old gentleman so comically resembled `Blinkie, a dissipated old tame jackdaw they had at home, in the way he cocked his head on one side, with his ruffled hair and all, that he couldn't have helped laughing, if he had died for it!
That night the little Jackdaw lay awake, while all the others slept, waiting to hear the green stone break out into sorrow, and to see if its winged mate would come seeking it. But after hours had gone, and nothing stirred or spoke, he slipped softly out of the nest, and went down to search for the poor little winged mate who must surely be about somewhere.
Word Of The Day