80 WHISPERS FROM FAIRVLAND. [rt

 

a young rook or indeed for anybody else who hopes
to succeed in the world, and a new vista of joyous
and peaceful life seemed opening out before us. But
alas! it was rudely interrupted. This world is full of
cares and woes, and I have observed that oftentimes
when our happiness is the greatest, our hearts the
lightest, and our prospects apparently the best, mis-
fortune falls upon us, as if to prove to us the vanity
and instability of earthly happiness. So it was with
regard to the happy family to which I then belonged.

On a beautiful morning in the month of May, I
was surprised by a sudden commotion in the rookery.
Respectable middle-aged rooks, ordinarily accustomed
to wing their steady flight from field to field, and some
of whom had been recently engaged in the domestic
occupation consequent upon the nesting season,
suddenly rose on all sides high into the air, and
uttering shrill cries of affright and dismay, wheeled in
eddying circles far above the trees which composed
our rookery. At first I thought that the world had
gone mad that May morning, or that my elders were
indulging in some wild and extraordinary pastime as
yet unknown to the juvenile members of the society.
But before long I became painfully aware that the
movement of our fathers and mothers was caused by
their knowledge of the proximity of awful danger to
their young. <A loud stunning report deafened my
ears—a report which arose, as it seemed, from the
ground below the rookery, and was succeeded by a
redoubling of the cries of affright uttered by the parent
birds. Eagerly peering through the branches of the
tree in which I sat, I perceived three individuals