It was morning on the high cliffs, and the day was quite still. Finn, the young falcon, sat by the side of his mother, watching the wood-birds flitting from tree to tree. He heard their soft morning songs, the newly hatched wood-pigeons calling, the cuckoo pretending to be a mere wood-bird, and then the little ring-dove with her “Save me, save me,” all in earnest chorus.
Underneath, at the base of the rocks, the sea looked a trifle angry, and was making a dull roar that sent the spray towards the jagged stones to meet the wooden pier that jutted out so far into the water. From his place of shelter, Finn could see the fishermen hoisting their pots of bait over the side of the pier, and could hear their merry laughter while they bickered and fought, not because they were cross, but for all the world like the birds in the glory of the tints of morning.
Now Finn sat so quietly between his mother’s paws and so near to her that she had only to bend down her head from time to time to get a look at him while she twisted her feathers and arranged her nest,—for the young had all flown away, and Finn was the only one left.
“Will they never come back again, mother? The trees are moving with my brothers and sisters. Will they never come back?”
“Never,” said his mother, gazing intently at a bough towards which, without knowing it, Finn was edging nearer.
“But I don’t want to spend the rest of my life here,” he cried. “Why should I not fly away from this warm nest, among the trees where the wood-pigeons are, as my sisters and brothers have done?”
“Because you are not fit for it yet, my son. You cannot fly.”
“Because I will not try,” said Finn, now mumbling to the little bits of moss with which the inside of his home was lined.
“Go on reproaching each other, children,” cried a voice not far off; “you have nothing else to do!”
“Who speaks?” cried Finn.
“Nobody,” said his mother; “only some of the boughs conversing together.”
“Why don’t you go on talking, mother? You have nothing else to do,” drawn from the wood-birds’ song.
Finn’s mother had been listening, and had forgotten the resentful tone with which her son had asked the question; but she sighed again, and giving him a gentle stroke said,
“Poor child! you do not know what it is to be without a nest of your own,—without something or other to reproach.”
Finn was ashamed of himself. “Forgive me, mother,” said he. “But if you love me, teach me to fly.”
“Come closer, then,” said she; “open wide your broken wing, and trust me.”
And very tenderly she arranged his wing. “Keep up your courage,” said she; “I shall try you no more where you are. I will try you on the edge of the mountain. And above all things do not forget my last word—keep up your courage.”
Suddenly Finn’s wing bent upwards into no end of curves, and the strange wiry sort of cramp with which he had always been affected flew away. It shot him when he was a mere fledgling, but now it did him no harm, for he was now strong enough not to be over-fatigued.
Finn took courage, fluttered along the ridge of the rock, and before he knew where he was, heard quite close to his ear the cry of his mother’s “Courage, courage, Finn! The ridge is still wide enough.”
But Finn feared the depth below. The side of the cliff appeared to him to stretch far, very far down, ever deepening, a bottomless abyss that only got lighter in its very depth. By the shore of the sea, the waves washed upon the stones to soothe his fears, but they only made them worse. To fly over that terrible unknown distance, where no branch of a tree, not even a startled sea-gull, appeared to save him from fearful death, that was too much!
Courage! Courage! What could he do?
He crouched down in the same place, and did not move from where he was.
“You disobeyed me, child,” cried his mother.
“It is true,” said he.
“You had absolutely nothing else to do,” shouted the boughs. “All day long you would have but reproaches to make.”
“No!” said Finn; “but the reproaches grow ever fewer, and listening to them makes me brave. You kept saying never before the turbulence of the sea.]
“I cannot listen to the boughs,” said the old falcon, coming closer to Finn. “I am as angry as you are.” And she flew off toward the sea.
“Mother!” cried Finn, “bring me some sea-air, nothing more; fetch me each gust.”
“You will see I sha’n’t bring you eggs today,” replied she, momentarily choking with the black bits of something (he did not know what) which she had just caught from the sea and was carrying home to him.
And crying, “The eggs are hatched!” she pushed up the four sea-swallows.
Finn had never before been so happy. For all that, he was too timid to dare lift one wing, still less to open his mouth wide, and suffocate little consolation.
His mother repeated loudly and above all things fresh sea-air, “So hot; so hot!” gasping but large gulps.
“Very well; I shall not give you any more, my son,” said the sea-swallows, and flew off towards the sea.
“Oh, mother! mother! Close dilate my wings!” cried Finn.
“Carr, carr!” cried the sea-swallows.
“Ah! Mother, my poor frozen wing! I shall never be able to fly even to the edge of the port. Au revoir.”
And over the sea he let off all the cackling of which he was capable.
“You are giddy,” said all the boughs.
But he was deaf, and had gone off.
Giddy! He giddied, so it is true. But was it his fault, or that of the smell of fresh fish the swallows constantly brought him?
All the boughs, the moment it saw it was the tail of a sea-swallows, made him a low bow, and said softly but apologetically, “We reproach you, mother sea-swallows, we only reproach you.”