II.My father was heartless enough to leave me in this mortifying situation for some days. In spite of his violence he was naturally kind-hearted, and had he not been prevented by his pride, he would have come to comfort me. I saw that he would fain forgive and forget, while my mother’s eyes hardly left me for an instant. For all that, they could not get over my abnormally white plumage, and bring themselves to own me as a member of the family.“It is quite evident I am not a Blackbird,” I repeated to myself, and my image, reflected in a pool of water in the spout, confirmed this belief.One wet night, when I was going off to sleep, a thin, tall, wiry-looking bird alighted close by my side. He seemed, like myself, a needy adventurer, but in spite of the storm that lifted his battered plumage, he carried his head with a proud and charming grace. Imade him a modest bow, to which he replied with a blow of his wing, nearly sweeping me from the spout.“Who are you?” he said with a voice as husky as his head was bald.“Alas! good sir,” I replied, fearing a second blow, “I have no notion who I am; I imagine myself to be a Blackbird.”The singularity of my reply, together with my simple artlessness, interested him so much that he requested me to tell him my history, which I did.“Were you like me, a Carrier-Pigeon,” said he, “all the doubtings and nonsense would be driven out of your head. Our destiny is to travel. We have our loves—we also have our history; yet I own I don’t know who my father is. To cleave the air, to traverse space, to view beneath our feet man-inhabited mountains and plains; to breathe the blue ether of the sky, in place of the foul exhalations of the earth; to fly like an arrow from place to place, bearing tidings of peace or war,—these are our pleasures and our duties. I go farther in one day than a man does in six days.”“Well, sir,” I replied, a little emboldened, “you are a Bohemian bird.”“True,” he said; “I have no country, and my knowledge is limited to these things—my wife, my little ones; and where my wife is, there is my country.”“What have you round your neck?”“These are papers of importance,” he replied proudly. “I am bound for Brussels with news to a celebrated banker which will lower the interest of money one franc seventy-eight centimes.”“Ah me!” I exclaimed, “you have a noble destiny. Brussels must, I suppose, be a fine city? Could you not take me with you? as I am not a Blackbird, perhaps I am a Carrier-Pigeon.”“Were you a Carrier you would have returned my blow.”“Well, sir,” I continued, “I will return it, only don’t let us quarrel about trifles. Morning dawns and the storm has abated, pray let me follow you. I am lost, have no home, nothing in the world; should you leave me, I shall destroy myself in the gutter.”“Come along, follow me if you can.”Casting a last look at the garden where my mother was sleeping, I spread my wings and away I flew.
My father was heartless enough to leave me in this mortifying situation for some days. In spite of his violence he was naturally kind-hearted, and had he not been prevented by his pride, he would have come to comfort me. I saw that he would fain forgive and forget, while my mother’s eyes hardly left me for an instant. For all that, they could not get over my abnormally white plumage, and bring themselves to own me as a member of the family.
“It is quite evident I am not a Blackbird,” I repeated to myself, and my image, reflected in a pool of water in the spout, confirmed this belief.
One wet night, when I was going off to sleep, a thin, tall, wiry-looking bird alighted close by my side. He seemed, like myself, a needy adventurer, but in spite of the storm that lifted his battered plumage, he carried his head with a proud and charming grace. Imade him a modest bow, to which he replied with a blow of his wing, nearly sweeping me from the spout.
“Who are you?” he said with a voice as husky as his head was bald.
“Alas! good sir,” I replied, fearing a second blow, “I have no notion who I am; I imagine myself to be a Blackbird.”
The singularity of my reply, together with my simple artlessness, interested him so much that he requested me to tell him my history, which I did.
“Were you like me, a Carrier-Pigeon,” said he, “all the doubtings and nonsense would be driven out of your head. Our destiny is to travel. We have our loves—we also have our history; yet I own I don’t know who my father is. To cleave the air, to traverse space, to view beneath our feet man-inhabited mountains and plains; to breathe the blue ether of the sky, in place of the foul exhalations of the earth; to fly like an arrow from place to place, bearing tidings of peace or war,—these are our pleasures and our duties. I go farther in one day than a man does in six days.”
“Well, sir,” I replied, a little emboldened, “you are a Bohemian bird.”
“True,” he said; “I have no country, and my knowledge is limited to these things—my wife, my little ones; and where my wife is, there is my country.”
“What have you round your neck?”
“These are papers of importance,” he replied proudly. “I am bound for Brussels with news to a celebrated banker which will lower the interest of money one franc seventy-eight centimes.”
“Ah me!” I exclaimed, “you have a noble destiny. Brussels must, I suppose, be a fine city? Could you not take me with you? as I am not a Blackbird, perhaps I am a Carrier-Pigeon.”
“Were you a Carrier you would have returned my blow.”
“Well, sir,” I continued, “I will return it, only don’t let us quarrel about trifles. Morning dawns and the storm has abated, pray let me follow you. I am lost, have no home, nothing in the world; should you leave me, I shall destroy myself in the gutter.”
“Come along, follow me if you can.”
Casting a last look at the garden where my mother was sleeping, I spread my wings and away I flew.