Eventually He Permitted A Nearer Approach, And Slowly
Stooping I Was Just On The Point Of Stroking His Back When,
Suddenly becoming alarmed, he swung himself into the air and
flapped laboriously off to a low hawthorn, twenty or thirty
Yards away, into which he tumbled pell-mell like a bundle of
old black rags.
Then I left him and thought no more about the crows except
that their young have a good deal to learn upon first coming
forth into an unfriendly world. But there was a second nest
and family close by all the time. A day or two later I
discovered it accidentally in a very curious way.
There was one spot where I was accustomed to linger for a few
minutes, sometimes for half an hour or so, during my daily
walks. Here at the foot of the low bank on the treeless side
of the stream there was a scanty patch of sedges, a most
exposed and unsuitable place for any bird to breed in, yet a
venturesome moorhen had her nest there and was now sitting on
seven eggs. First I would take a peep at the eggs, for the
bird always quitted the nest on my approach; then I would gaze
into the dense tangle of tree, bramble, and ivy springing out
of the mass 'of black rock and red clay of the opposite bank.
In the centre of this rough tangle which overhung the stream
there grew an old stunted and crooked fir tree with its tufted
top so shut out from the light by the branches and foliage
round it that it looked almost black. One evening I sat down
on the green bank opposite this tangle when the low sun behind
me shone level into the mass of rock and rough boles and
branches, and fixing my eyes on the black centre of the mass I
encountered a pair of crimson eyes staring back into mine. A
level ray of light had lit up that spot which I had always
seen in deep shadow, revealing its secret. After gazing
steadily for some time I made out a crow's nest in the dwarf
pine top and the vague black forms of three young fully
fledged crows sitting or standing in it. The middle bird had
the shining crimson eyes; but in a few moments the illusory
colour was gone and the eyes were black.
It was certainly an extraordinary thing: the ragged-looking
black-plumaged bird on its ragged nest of sticks in the deep
shade, with one ray of intense sunlight on its huge nose-like
beak and blood-red eyes, a sight to be remembered for a
lifetime! It recalled Zurbaran's picture of the "Kneeling
Monk," in which the man with everything about him is steeped
in the deepest gloom except his nose, on which one ray of
strong light has fallen. The picture of the monk is gloomy
and austere in a wonderful degree: the crow in his interior
with sunlit big beak and crimson eyes looked nothing less than
diabolical.
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