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Its sides at present were covered with a thick growth of gorse, elderberry, egg-plants, and ghillie flower, while the woods about it were loud with the voice of the throstle, the linnet, the magpie, the jackdaw, and other song-birds of the Highlands. It was a gloriously beautiful Scotch morning.
Presently earthly sounds began to come back to drown the delicious voice in his ears; he heard the little river Lisse, flowing, flowing under green branches; he heard a throstle singing in the summer wind; he heard, far in the deeper forest, something passing patter, patter, patter over the dead leaves.
And thus the good ship THROSTLE bore home the whole happy party to Weymouth, and good Sir Marmaduke had an unceasing cause for exultation in the brilliant success of his mission to France. After all, the first to revisit that country was no other than the once homesick Philip.
"Think o' Julia!" said uncle George, with a kind of groan. "Think of 'Ode to a Throstle' poor Julia sweet soul!"
And when he came to die oh, in a very, very few years, for they must remember that "a doggie isna as lang-leevin' as folk" they must not forget that Bobby would not be permitted to be buried in the kirkyard. "We'll gie 'im a grand buryin'," said Tammy. "We'll find a green brae by a babblin' burn aneath a snawy hawthorn, whaur the throstle sings an' the blackbird whustles."
*Winter's Tale, Act IV Scene ii. *John Aubrey. He knew the lore of fields and woods, of trees and flowers, and birds and beasts. He sang of "The ousel-cock so black of hue, With orange-tawny bill, The throstle with his note so true, The wren with little quill. The finch, the sparrow, and the lark, The plain-song cuckoo gray, Whose note full many a man doth mark, And dares not answer nay."*
The waker goose, the cuckoo, ever unkind; The popinjay, full of delicacy; The drake, destroyer of his owne kind; The stork, avenger of adultery; The cormorant, hot and full of gluttony The crows and ravens with their voice of care; And the throstle old, and the frosty fieldfare.
If still she be so wond'rous kind, Perchance she'll ease the fretted mind That naught can cure but Rosalind. With a glad little cry she crumpled the paper in her hand and fled, straight as a throstle to its mate, to the giant twin oaks which were landmarks in the forest.
All the air was laden with the bitter fragrance of the May, and all the bosky shades of the woodlands beyond rang with the sweet song of birds the throstle cock, the cuckoo, and the wood pigeon and with the song of birds mingled the cool sound of the gurgling brook that leaped out of the forest shades, and ran fretting amid its rough, gray stones across the sunlit open glade before the trysting tree.
Here my uncle George rose up, sat down and rose again, striving for speech, while uncle Jervas smiled and dangled his eyeglass. That's done it, Jervas, that's one in the wind. A poet! Poor, poor lad. He has written some charming sonnets, and an ode to a throstle that has been much admired. Ode! B'gad! Throstle! MY UNCLE JERVAS. He trifles with paints and brushes, too, I believe?
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