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Presently, after much peering into the bag, the fine white pea, the wizened pea, and the pale and speckled pea, lay in line upon the stone. "This," explained Mary Antony, pointing, with knobby forefinger, to the first, "is the Reverend Mother, Herself large, and pure, and noble. . . . Nay, hop not too close, Sir Redbreast!
Not a town, not a village, not a solitary cottage during the English Middle Ages was unvisited by him who frightened the children; they had a name for him as for the wild birds Robin Redbreast, Dicky Swallow, Philip Sparrow, Tom Tit, Tom-a-Bedlam. And after him came the "Abram men," who were sane parodies of the crazed, and went to the fairs and wakes in motley.
'Well, I think I had better make sure of you while I can have you for this one Saturday afternoon, she said. 'In future I shall not be surprised if you spend Saturdays often with your old lady at Robin Redbreast. I have written to her, Jacinth. I am just going to post the letter. 'Oh, thank you, said the girl.
Oh, won't it be the finest thing to plan our new house, to watch while it is being built, to furnish it, and finally to move into it and start with a real home of our own!" Again they were silent. Amid the trees birds were calling, mate to mate. A proud redbreast danced across the lawn, pausing to capture a fated insect, then flew up into one of the trees to feed its mate upon a nest.
Another, a small, brown bird, with modest plumage, surprised and delighted me, by a clear, full whistle, that sounded not unlike that of our own robin redbreast. We also saw numbers of a species of pigeon with black bills, slate-coloured bodies, and a ruff of white feathers about the neck.
"I feel like a Robin Redbreast," said Marjorie; "isn't it all beautiful! Did you do it, Mother?" "Yes, with Sarah's help," said Mrs. Maynard, for her faithful and clever little waitress was of great assistance in such matters. "It's like eating in an enchanted palace," said Kitty. "Everything is so bright and sparkly and gleaming; and, oh! I'm so hungry!"
He robbed the Redbreast of his ruddy vest, the Hoopoe of his crown, and he secured a swallow-tail which he had long coveted. He took some rosy-redness from the Flamingo, the gilding of the Goldfinch, the gray down of an Eider-Duck. He burgled the Bluebird and the Redbird and the Yellowbird; and not one single feathered creature escaped his clever beak.
The clear spring sunshine was falling brightly on the quaint old house; what of the garden could be seen was exquisitely neat and trim; Robin Redbreast was looking charming. 'What a delicious old house! said Jacinth. 'I wonder who lives here? and she gave a little sigh.
But the bluebird is not strictly a songster in the sense in which the song sparrow or the indigo-bird, or the English robin redbreast, is; nor do Bryant's lines hit the mark: "The bluebird chants, from the elm's long branches, A hymn to welcome the budding year." Lowell, again, is nearer the truth when he speaks of his "whiff of song."
A redbreast skipped about the furrows made in the white carpet by the carriage wheels, paused, turned his tiny impertinent head, and glanced up at the ramparts with a squint, as though to tell the time of day by the sun and the shadows of the projecting eaves.
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