Apparently madam was not at home, by good luck, for the boys passed, and Blackie once more executed the magic of getting into his nest without seeming to do so.  And here he stayed.  Dusk was setting in, and his young were fourteen days old.  They showed it in their disobedience, and were not in the least inclined to keep as quiet as they should, considering their father had but just warned them, in his own way, to “lie doggo,” because of the gray shape he had seen sliding out into the field, a gray shape which was a cat.

They were more like thrushes than blackbirds, those youngsters, with their speckly fawn breasts; and they were not like the adults of either in their frog-like attitudes and heavy ways.  Frankly, they were not beautiful, even at that stage; and a fortnight before, when they had been larger than the eggs they had come out of, they were positively reptilian and repulsive.

Blackie said the blackbird equivalent to “Be quiet, you little fools!” as quietly and as sternly as he could three or four times, and perched on the top of a wheelbarrow to watch the gray shadow which was a cat.  That sudden death, however, was more afraid of the open than Blackie, even, and, moreover, wasn’t expecting blackbirds’ nests in the middle of fields.  It turned back; and at length Mrs. Blackie, who had been on a general survey round about to see what foes of the night were on the move—­and a fine hubbub she had made in the process—­came home, reporting all well.

Then they slept; at least, they ceased to be any further seen or heard.  Think, however, how you would sleep if every few minutes you could hear sounds in your house one-third of which were probably the noises of a burglar.  Think, also, how you would feel if you knew that that burglar was a murderer, and that that murderer was, in all likelihood, looking for you, or some one just like you.  Yet those birds were happy enough, I fancy.

It was barely pale gray.  It was cold and wan and washed, and wonderfully clean and sweet, and wet with dews, when a lark climbed invisibly into the sky and suddenly burst into song, next morning.  There was something strange and out of place, in a way, in this song, breaking out of the night; and as it and another continued to break the utter silence for ten minutes, it seemed rather as if it were still night, and not really dawn at all.  Dawn appeared to be waiting for something else to give it authority, so to speak, and at the end of ten minutes that something else came—­the slim form of Blackie, streaking, phantom-like, through the mist from the trench out in the field to the summer-house in the garden.  Here, mounted upon the very top, he stood for a moment, as one clearing his throat before blowing a bugle, and then, full, rich, deep, and flute-like, he lazily gave out the first bars of his song.  Instantly, almost as if it had been a signal, a great tit-mouse sang out, “Tzur ping-ping! tzur ping-ping!” in metallic, ringing notes; a thrush struck in with his brassy, clarion challenge, thrush after thrush taking it up, till, with the clear warble of robin and higher, squeaking notes of hedge-sparrow and wren joining in, the wonderful first bars of the Dawn Hymn of the birds rolled away over the fields to the faraway woods, and beyond.