Chapter 4 | Peedle-Weedle-Wee | Featherland

“There, only hark at that,” said Mrs Flutethroat; “who can possibly go to sleep with that noise going on—ding, ding, dinging in one’s ears?” saying which the good dame took her head from beneath her wing, and smoothed down her feathers as she spoke. “There never was such a nuisance as those bottle-tits anywhere.”

The noise that Mrs Flutethroat complained of proceeded from the low branches of a large fir-tree; and as the good dame listened the sounds came again louder than ever, “Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee,” in a small, thready, pipy tone, as though the birds who uttered the cry had had their voices split up into two or three pieces.

“Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee,” cried a row of little long-tailed birds, so small that they looked like little balls of feathers, with tiny black eyes and a black beak—so small that it was hardly worth calling a beak at all—stuck at one point, and a thin tail at the other extreme.

“Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee,” they kept crying, which meant,—“Let me come inside where it’s warm;” and as they kept on whining the same cry, the outside birds kept flitting over the backs of those next to them, and trying to get a middle place. Then the next two did the same, and the next, and the next, until they all had done the same thing, when they began again; and all the while that wretched, querulous piping “peedle-weedle-wee” kept on, till Mrs Flutethroat grew so angry, and annoyed and irritable, that she felt as though she could have thrown one of her eggs at the tiresome little intruders on the peace of the garden.

“Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee,” said the bottle-tits as busy as ever, trying to get the warmest spot.

“There they go again,” said Mrs Flutethroat; “why don’t you go somewhere else, and not make that noise there?”

“Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee,” said the bottle-tits.

“Ah!” said Mrs Flutethroat, “I wish I was behind you, I’d make you say ‘Peedle-wee-weedle—weedle-wee-peedle,’ as you call it. I’d soon He after you, only it is so dark, and all my egg’s would grow cold. Tchink-tchink-tchink,” she cried, trying to fright them; but still they kept on “Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee” worse than ever; and, as it grew dark, it actually appeared as though they were coming nearer to the nest.

“There,” she exclaimed at last, “I can’t stand this any longer! Here, Flutethroat, wake up, do,” she cried to her partner, who was sitting upon a neighbouring bough with his feathers erect all over him, and his head turned right under and quite out of sight. “Wake up, wake up, do,” she cried again, trying to shake the boughs.

But Flutethroat could not wake up just then, for he was enjoying a most delightful dream: he was living in a country where there were no cats, nor any other living things but slugs, snails, and grubs; while all kinds of fruit grew in profusion, so that there was no difficulty in obtaining any amount of food; but one great drawback to his happiness was an ugly, misshapen little bird, which would keep running after him, and crying, “Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee,” or else shouting at him to “wake up.”

“Wake up, wake up,” cried the voice.

“Get along with you, do,” said Flutethroat.

“Peedle-weedle-wee, peedle-weedle-wee,” cried the voice again.

“Oh! bother,” said Flutethroat, slowly drawing his head out from beneath his wing, and finding that the voices were real, and plainly to be heard on both sides of the puzzled bird; for Mrs Flutethroat was crying out “Wake up, wake up,” and the bottle-tits were squabbling more than ever for the warmest place.

“There, at last,” said Mrs Flutethroat, “if you sleep after that fashion, that old green-eyed cat must have you some day, and I shall be made a disconsolate widow.”

“Well, what’s the matter?” said Flutethroat, opening his yellow bill quite an inch, and gaping dreadfully without putting a wing before his mouth.

“What’s the matter?” said his mate crabbily. “Why, look at those nasty little feather-balls peedle-weedling; who can put up with it? They’ve no business there at all. They’ve been making that noise for half-an-hour.”

“Well, go to sleep, and don’t take any notice.”

“But I can’t; I’ve been trying ever so long, and they won’t let me. Every now and then I think they have gone to sleep, but they only burst out worse than ever. There, hark at them; isn’t it dreadful?”

“Heigho—he—ha—ha—hum—mum; yes, very,” said Flutethroat. “Oh! dear; how sleepy I am!”

“Sleepy,” said Mrs Flutethroat crossly; “so am I; then why don’t you go and stop that dreadful noise?”

“How can I stop it? They have as good a right to be there as we have to be here; so we must not interfere with them.”

“But you must stop it,” said his wife, getting so cross that Flutethroat was obliged to say “Very well,” and go slowly towards the fir-tree, where the tiny birds were sitting in a row, and when he got up to them there they were tired out and fast asleep; the last one awake having dropped off just as he was half through saying “weedle,” and as he was going to hop over his neighbours’ backs to get in the middle.

Flutethroat stopped to look at the little downy grey mites, and could not help thinking how pretty they looked; when he went back to the laurel bush, and found his mate fast asleep too; and so there was nothing else for it but to turn himself into a ball of feathers, which he quickly did; and then there was nought to be heard but the night breezes of early spring rustling through the half bare trees, and hurrying off to fetch water from the sea to drop upon the ground, so that flowers and grass might spring up, and earth look bright and gay once more.

“Kink-kink-kink,” cried Flutethroat, darting through the shrubbery next morning, and rousing up his cousins, who were soon busy at work finishing their nest and getting everything in apple-pie order. How hard they all worked; fetching materials from all sorts of distant places, and picking only those of the most sober hues, such as would not attract the notice of those people who might be passing by; and then how carefully was every straw, or hair, or thread woven in and out and secured, so that the walls of the nests grew up neat, tight, and compact as possible, and all the while so tightly fastened that nothing short of great violence could move them from their place. As for the nests of Flutethroat and his cousins, they were so warmly plastered inside, that it might have been thought that they meant their little nests to be substantial houses to last them for years to come.

“Caw-aw—caw-aw—caw-aw,” cried a rook up in the high limes.

“Caw-caw-caw-caw,” cried all the rest of the rooks up in the high limes. And then such a chorus broke forth that the whole of Greenlawn was in a state of alarm, and called a meeting in the cedar to know what was the matter.

“There’s somebody shot,” said Mr Specklems, the starling.

“Nonsense,” said the thrush; “there was no pop. It must be something much worse than that.”

“Send some one to ask,” said the jackdaw.

“Ah! to be sure,” said everybody in chorus; and so it was decided that the jackdaw should go and see, and then come back and deliver his report.

Off he went; and all the time he was gone the birds in the cedar made a noise of their own, almost equal to that in the rookery, till the jackdaw came back looking so cunning and knowing, that every one could plainly see that nothing very serious was the matter.

As soon as he got up to his place in the cedar all the birds crowded round him to make inquiries; but the daw began to teaze them, and wouldn’t tell anything for a few minutes, and then in a half whisper he said something to the starling.

“Tchitch!” said Specklems, “is that all? why I’d have two dozen hatchings without making one half of that disturbance. Dear friends,” he continued, turning round to the assembled birds, “dear friends, it’s a great to-do about nothing at all; for all that hullabaloo is because there are some young rooks hatched.”

“Boo! oh! er! ah!” cried all the birds in all sorts of tones of disgust and annoyance. “What a shame.—Stupid things,” and many other expressions of indignation at being startled about such a piece of rubbish, burst from the birds; and directly after there was a whirl, and a rush, for all the birds darted off in the greatest haste to get to their business again, to make up for lost time; and would not leave it afterwards although a jay flew over screaming harshly; and a stray hen got in the garden scratching the flower beds, and had to be hunted out; nor yet even when Mrs Puss came slinking down the garden, and round all the flower beds; for this was a terribly busy time, and every moment was of value, though certainly food began to be much more plentiful now the warm and genial sun began to shine longer every day, and made bud after bud burst into beautiful emerald green leaves, that made the trees cast a deeper shade, and began to conceal the nests—even those of the rooks up in the tall limes.