William Fowler - Tales of the birds

Suddenly the shriek of an engine coming from the distant town broke in on the silence, and gave Feltie a kind of courage.

“Let us go back,” he said, “and find them. Jill can’t go on, I feel sure, and Jack has stayed with her. Let us go back and pass the night in the park.”

“Feltie,” said Cocktail, “I never guessed you were such a coward. You want to stay behind too, do you? Go back and join Jack and Jill; the berries won’t last so long as the frost, and you will be less able then to fly further south. There you’ll stay, and there perhaps you’ll die; and I shall never see you again. Why can’t you trust in me? I expected to be obeyed, and you are all rebelling and deserting me!”

Feltie made up his mind in a moment. Jack and Jill must take care of themselves; he and Cocktail must hold together. A shade of pity crossed his mind for Cocktail’s disappointment. “He was meant to lead,” he thought, “and we are not giving him a fair chance. Whatever happens I will stick to him, and perhaps he will need my help yet.”

“I am ready,” he said; “I will not leave you.”

“That’s a good fellow,” said Cocktail. “Now fly your best; the sun must be sinking soon, for though it is all cloudy, I can see a faint pink light on the hills we left behind us this morning. Remember how easily we got across them, and what a good supper we found on the other side. We shall soon be across these hills too, and then we will find another garden and more holly-trees.” And off he flew.

Cocktail was quite himself again, but he had reckoned without his host: how was he, poor bird, to know what the Marlborough Downs were like in winter? How was he to guess that instead of reaching some deep warm valley at sunset, they might fly on till after dark, and indeed perhaps all through the night, without a chance of escaping from that terrible wind? Long, undulating plains, all shrouded in white; rounded hills, whose dim whiteness melted into leaden gray as it met the snow-laden clouds; here and there a shelterless dip, down which the wind swept almost more wildly than on the open plain: between these they had to choose, if choose they would: and as one was no better than the other, they went straight on.

At last they reached a rather deeper and wider hollow, at the bottom of which a large road ran. 4 4 The London and Bristol road in the Kennet Valley west of Marlborough. A high bank sheltered this road to the north, and at the top of the bank was a hedge. It was now dark, blowing and snowing furiously.

“This is our only chance, Feltie,” said Cocktail: “but see there where the road turns a little; there we can get a better shelter.”

And here, just where an old ruined turnpike cottage stood between the road and the bank, with long brown grass growing behind it, they settled down for the night – a night which few who live on those downs will ever forget. Feltie himself used afterwards to say that they must have died, but for one solitary piece of good fortune. The two birds had crouched down in the long grass at the foot of the bank close to each other, and put their heads under their wings, but sleep would not come; they were too hungry and too wretched. Some time after dark a rustling was heard in the frozen grass; some four-footed creature was coming.

“Fox!” whispered Cocktail; “but I can’t fly, and if I could, where should we go? It’s all up, I fear, but crouch closer in the grass and see.”

It was not a fox; it was a hare. Puss came softly in behind the ruined cottage, and crouched down quietly close to the birds. They kept perfectly still. When she was fast asleep Cocktail whispered to Feltie to move up to her, and did so himself, getting as near her warm breath as possible. Feltie followed his example. And thus they passed the night, tolerably warm and comfortable, and even sleeping. Puss never offered to stir, and was still fast asleep when they left her in the morning.

The next day, no breakfast. Not a morsel of food was to be found anywhere. The fields were deep in snow. Once they tried a rickyard, but the farmer’s son came out with his gun, and they had to take to flight again, frightened out of their lives. Their wings were getting feeble, and they often had to alight on the ground and rest; and after resting, every fresh starting was more difficult than the last. Cocktail said little, and seemed to be getting deaf and sleepy; Feltie had to take the lead and keep the lookout. They passed at midday over some lower-lying country, 5 5 Pewsey Vale. and then, almost without knowing it, they once more found themselves upon a high, bleak table-land of never-ending down. 6 6 Salisbury Plain. As night fell they sank quite exhausted on the sheltered side of a high hill, whose flanks were clothed thickly with gorse, hoping that some friendly hare might again favour them with her company.

In the middle of the night Cocktail suddenly spoke: “Feltie,” he said, “we ought to have stayed in that park. If I had known what was coming I would have stayed, but one can’t know everything. You may have to go on without me to-morrow; if I can’t fly, you must go on. I’m your leader, and this is my last order. Go on till you get food, and when the frost goes, come back this way if you care to. If you don’t find me, tell Jack and Jill that they were right, and I was wrong. Good-night once more, old Feltie; mind and do as I tell you.”

Cocktail said these last words with something of his old cheerful tone of authority; then he put his head under his wing again. Feltie said nothing, but nestled closer to him. When morning broke, and Feltie ruffled his feathers and looked about him as usual, Cocktail did not do the same. His head was still under his wing, but not a feather stirred; Cocktail was dead, and frozen hard. Feltie shuddered and flew away, hardly knowing where he went.

It did not indeed much matter which way he went. Death was all around. The only living creature abroad was a wandering carrion crow, whose melancholy croak seemed to tell that he too was starving. The broad white pall lay silently over the whole plain; the sky was still overcast, and the wind blew from the north-east with hardly less cruel violence than on the day before. It was more the wind than his own wings that carried Feltie along. Those wings were stiff and painful, and would do their work no longer. And he, too, like poor Cocktail, was getting drowsy with hunger and fatigue; life was going slowly out of him. He did not feel much pain; he simply kept getting every minute more tired, more sleepy, and, strange to say, more comfortable.

After a time he came to the edge of a steep hill, at the foot of which was a straggling village. It looked desolate enough, for the thatched roofs were covered with snow, and tall elms above them swayed in the howling wind. Beyond the village were some flat meadows, full of ditches, and divided by a stream not yet quite frozen over; on the other side of the meadows the downs rose steeply again. Feltie had not enough life left in him to feel that there was any hope for him in this valley; he was simply drifting like a dead leaf or a snowflake, and it little mattered where he stopped. Somewhere the leaf would settle and decay, somewhere the snowflake would drop and melt: somewhere too the poor starving bird must rest from his last flight, and sink into a never-ending sleep. The wind took him over the brow of the hill, and with a series of little flights, ever growing shorter and feebler, he made his way down the white slope, and settled, almost stupefied, under the leeward side of a large barn, which stood close to a farmhouse on the outskirts of the village. There he sat crouching, his head sunk into his neck, his tail and wings drooping, his eyes half closed – a very different bird from the Feltie who had started on his journey three days before, quite unconscious of trouble and pain.