Kitabı oku: «The Pond»

CHAPTER I
The Beginning

One day in early spring, a young reed-warbler sat in a bush in Italy and hung his beak.

This was not because he really had anything to complain of. The sun was shining; there were flies in plenty; and no one was doing him harm. A little while before, a pretty girl, with jet-black eyes, had sat under the bush and listened to his song and kissed her hand to him.

And yet he wanted something.

He was tired of the Italian flies. He had a feeling in his wings as if he could do hundreds of miles at a stretch. There were notes in his throat which he was unable to get out and his little heart was filled with a longing which he could not understand and which would have made him cry, if a reed-warbler knew how to cry. But he can only sing and he sings just alike on all days, whether he be glad or sorry.

So he sang. And, when he stopped, he heard a voice, from a bush close by, which resembled his own to a nicety, only it was not so strong.

He was off in a moment and alighting on a twig gazed at the sweetest little lady reed-warbler that one could wish to set eyes on.

There was no one to introduce them to each other and so they introduced themselves. For there is not the same stiff etiquette among birds as at a court ball. Also things move more quickly; and, when they had chatted for five minutes or so, the reed-warbler said:

"Now that I have seen you, I know what's the matter with me. I am longing to go back to the land where I was born. I have a distinct recollection of a quiet pond, with reeds and rushes and green beeches round it."

"I am longing to go there, too," said the little reed-warbler. "I remember it also."

"Then the best thing that we can do is to get engaged," said he. "As soon as we come to the pond, we will celebrate our marriage and build a nest."

"Will you love me till I die?" she asked.

"I can't answer for more than the summer," he replied. "But I promise you that."

Then she said yes. They had no one to announce the engagement to, for they had seen none of their relations since the autumn. So they had a little banquet to themselves. He treated her to some fat flies; and they sang a little duet and started on their journey.

They flew for many days.

Sometimes they rested a little, when they came to a green valley, and they also made travelling-acquaintances. For there were many birds going the same way and they often flew in flocks and flights. But the two reed-warblers always kept close together, as good sweethearts should. And, when they were tired, they cheered each other with tales of the quiet pond.

At last they arrived.

It was a beautiful morning towards the end of May. The sun was shining; and white clouds floated slowly through the sky. The beeches were quite out and the oaks nearly. The reeds and rushes were green, the little waves danced merrily in the sun and all things wore a look of sheer enjoyment.

"Isn't it lovely?" asked the reed-warbler.

"Yes," she said. "We will live here."

Close to the shore they found a place which they liked. They bound three reeds together with fine fibres, a yard above the water, and then wove the dearest little basket, which they lined with nice down. When the reeds swayed in the wind, the nest swayed too, but that did not matter, for it was bound fast and reed-warblers are never seasick.

It took them eight days to build it; and they were awfully happy together all the time. They sang, so that they could be heard right across the pond; and, in the evening, when they were tired, they hopped about in the reeds and smiled upon each other or peeped at their neighbours on either side and opposite.

"There's the water-lily shooting up through the water," said little Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "I remember her well; she is so stately and so beautiful."

"There is the green frog sitting on the edge," said he. "He catches flies and grubs, just as I do, but there are enough here for both of us, so we shan't fall out."

"Look at the cray-fish crawling down below!" cried she. "And there's the roach … and the perch … and oh, look, there's quite a green wood at the bottom of the pond and fish swimming between the branches and caddis-grubs rocking in their cases!.."

"Yes, it's charming here," he said, in a tone as though it all belonged to him.

"And they all look so nice," she said, "and so happy. I feel sure they are all newly married like ourselves."

"Of course," said the reed-warbler. "Every one gets married in the spring. But I don't believe there's anybody in the wide world as happy as we are."

And then he stretched out his neck and sang, for all to hear:

There's not in the wide world a sweetheart like mine,

 
So fair, so fine,
And no singer on earth sings better!
Let others go worship whomever they will,
I'm true to my beautiful sweetheart still
And shall never, forget her.
 

"And so you're only going to love me for the summer?" she said.

"That's just a way of talking," said he.

CHAPTER II
A Man of The World

Little Mrs. Reed-Warbler heaved five deep sighs and, at each sigh, she laid an egg. Then she sat down on the eggs and sighed again.

And the reeds swayed in the balmy wind and the nest swayed and the eggs swayed that lay in the nest and the dear little brown bird that sat on the eggs. Even the husband swayed. For, when one rush sways, the other sways too; and he was sitting on one just beside the nest.

"You're no worse off than others, darling," he said. "Look down into the water and see for yourself."

"I can see nothing," she said sadly.

"Fiddlesticks!" said the reed-warbler. "You can peep over for a minute, if you sit down again at once."

And so she peeped over.

It was certainly very busy down below.

The pond-snail was swimming with her pointed shell on her back. She stood right on her head in the water and made a boat of her broad foot, which lay level with the surface of the pond and supported the whole fabric. Then she stretched out her foot and the boat was gone and she went down to the bottom and stuck a whole heap of slimy eggs to the stalk of a water-lily.

The pike came and laid an egg in a water-milfoil bush. The carp did the same; and the perch hung a nice nest of eggs in between the reeds where the warblers had built their nest. The frog brought her eggs, the stickleback had almost finished his nest and hundreds of animals that were so small that one could hardly see them ran about and made ready for their young ones.

Just then, the eel put his head up out of the mud:

"If you will permit me, madam … I have seen a bit of the world myself…"

Mrs. Reed-Warbler gave a faint scream.

"I can't stand that person," she said to her husband. "He's so like the adder, who ate my little sister last year, when she fell to the ground as she was learning to fly. He has the same offensive manners and is just as slippery."

"Oh," said the eel, "it's a great misfortune for me if I meet with your disapproval, madam, on that account. And it's quite unjust. I am only a fish and not the slightest relation to the adder, who took that little liberty with your sister, madam. We may have just a superficial resemblance, in figure and movement: one has to wriggle and twist. But I am really much more slippery. My name, for that matter, is Eel … at your service."

"My wife is hatching her eggs," said the reed-warbler. "She can't stand much excitement."

"Thank you for telling me, Mr. Reed-Warbler," said the eel. "I did not mean to intrude… But as I have travelled considerably myself, like you and your good lady, I thought I might venture to address you, in the hope that we may hold the same liberal opinions concerning the petty affairs of the pond."

"So you are a traveller. Can you fly?" asked the reed-warbler.

"Not exactly," said the eel. "I can't fly. But I can wriggle and twist. I can get over a good stretch of country, which is more than most fish are able to say. I feel grand in the damp grass; and give me the most ordinary ditch and you'll never hear me complain. I come straight from the sea, you know. And, when I've eaten myself fat here, I shall go back to the sea again."

"That's saying a good deal," said the reed-warbler.

"Yes," said the eel, modestly. "And just because I have seen something of the world, all this fuss about children in the pond here strikes me as a bit absurd."

"You're talking rather thoughtlessly, my good Eel," said the reed-warbler. "I can see you have neither wife nor children."

"Oh," said the eel, making a fine flourish with his tail, "that depends on how you look at it! Last year, I brought about a million eels into the world."

"Goodness gracious me!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Aren't you exaggerating?" asked her husband, who was equally impressed, but did not wish to show it.

"Possibly," replied the eel. "That's easily done, with such large figures. But it's of no consequence. You can divide it by two, if that eases your conscience."

"And what about your own conscience, as the father of such an enormous progeny?"

"I never really consulted it," said the eel.

"And how's your wife?" asked little Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Can't say. I never saw her."

"You never saw your wife?"

"No, madam. Nor my children either."

"Indeed, you do your friends an injustice," said the reed-warbler. "For, only a moment ago, with my own eyes I saw how the stickleback built a nest down there for his children."

"The stickleback!" said the eel, with a sneer. "I can't stand sticklebacks: they prick me so horribly in the neck. But that has nothing to do with the case. What is a stickleback, I ask you? I remember once when I was caught and about to be skinned. I was very small at the time and the cook, who was going to put a knife into me, said 'No bigger than a stickleback'!"

"Were you caught? Were you about to be skinned?" asked the reed-warbler. "How on earth did you escape?"

"I slipped away from the cook," replied the eel. "Thanks to my slipperiness, which your good lady disliked. Then I got into the sink … out through the gutter, the gutter-pipe, the ditch and so on. One has to wriggle and twist."

"You may well say that!" said the reed-warbler.

"One goes through a bit of everything, you see," said the eel. "But to return to what we were saying, take us eels, for instance. We fling our young into the sea and, for the rest, leave them to their own resources. Like men of the world that we are, we know what life is worth and therefore we fling them out wholesale, by the million, as I said just now: I beg pardon, by the half-million; I don't want to offend your love of accuracy. In this way, the children learn to shift for themselves at once. I was brought up in this way myself and learnt to wriggle and twist."

"I can't understand it," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Very sorry," said the eel. "Perhaps my conversation is rather too much for a lady who is sitting on her eggs."

"I think children are the sweetest things in the world," she said. "One can't help being fond of them, whether they're one's own or another's."

"The ladies are always right," said the eel, eating a couple of caddis-grubs and a little worm. "But am I mistaken, or did I see you eat a grub just now, madam, which your husband brought you?"

"A grub…?"

"Yes … isn't that a child too?"

"I shall faint in a minute," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler; and she did.

"Wriggle and twist!" said the eel; and off he went.

The reed-warbler brought his wife back to life with three fat flies, seven sweet songs and a jog on her neck.

"You ought to appreciate me, at any rate!" he said, when she was sufficiently recovered for him to speak to her. "The way I feed you and sing to you! Think what other husbands are like."

"So I do," she replied.