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Awaking quietly, he heard a little cheep; he opened his eyes, and lo! upon his breviary, which was on a low stool near his feet, ruffling all his feathers with a single pull, and smoothing them as suddenly, and cocking his bill this way and that with a vast display of cunning purely imaginary, perched a robin redbreast. Clement held his breath.
Well, I played pinochle with Uncle Lucky Lefthindfoot last evening and it was so late when I got home that I overslept myself this morning. And maybe I'd have slept all day if Robbie Redbreast hadn't come to my window and told me that Billy Bunny was reading a letter which I told you about in yesterday's story and that every time he turned a page he laughed harder than ever.
Presently the notes of her hymn mingled in plaintive harmony with the sparkling but no sweeter song of a robin redbreast, twittering his delight in the warm sunshine amid the crimson apples of the tree that overhung the spring. "Will ye hev a fresh drink?" she asked Harry, on her return. He took the gourdful of clear, cool water, which she offered him, and drank heartily.
"Well, anyhow," proceeded the M.L.O., in the relieved manner of one who has chosen which of two doubtful courses to adopt, and is happy in his choice, "there's a boat going to Suvla to-night. The Redbreast, I think. I'll make you out a passage for the Redbreast." He did so, and handed the chit to Monty, who replied: "Thanks. But supposing the Cheshires are not at Suvla?"
Leaning over the rail, he cried at the crowd on the Redbreast: "Good-bye, lads. Let fly! Three cheers for the king! Let 'em go!" The boys caught his enthusiasm, as boys always will, and followed his lead, cheering the king and singing: "For he's a jolly good fellow.... And so say all of us. With a hip-hip-hip-hurrah!" And with them cheering and singing thus, the Redbreast slipped quietly away.
She had just paused and was looking up at a long spray of ivy swinging in the wind when she saw a gleam of scarlet and heard a brilliant chirp, and there, on the top of the wall, forward perched Ben Weatherstaff's robin redbreast, tilting forward to look at her with his small head on one side. "Oh!" she cried out, "is it you is it you?"
But, best of all, Bobby loved a comfortable and friendly robin redbreast not the American thrush that is called a robin, but the smaller Old World warbler. It had its nest of grass and moss and feathers, and many a silver hair shed by Bobby, low in a near-by thorn bush.
A big robin redbreast had been calling his raucous weather warning from the top of one of the trees near the house; but, with her back to the river and the coming storm, the girl in the pavilion gave little heed to this good-intentioned weather prophet.
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.
Mr and Mrs Redbreast were just married, and shocking as it may seem, were quarrelling about the place where they should live. Mr Robin wanted the snug quarters in the ivy, down by the melon pits; while Mrs Redbreast said it was draughty, and made up her mind to live in the rockery amongst the fern.
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