She was on closest visiting terms with innumerable broods of
newly-hatched birdlings--knew them, indeed, while they were still but
eggs--delighted in them when they were as yet but skin and
mouth--rejoiced in their featherings and flyings. Even baby cuckoos were
a joy to her, though, on their foster-mothers' accounts she resented the
thriftlessness of their parents, and grew tired each year of their
monotonous call which ceased not day or night. But of the larks never,
for their songs seemed to her of heaven, while the cuckoos were of
earth. The gulls, too, were somewhat difficult from the friendly point
of view, but she lay for hours overlooking their domestic arrangements
and envying the wonders of their matchless flight.
And down below the cliffs what marvels she discovered!--marvels which in
many cases the Vicar was fain to content himself with at second hand,
since closer acquaintance seemed to him to involve undoubted risk to
limb if not to life. Little Nance, indeed, hopped down the seamed cliffs
like a rock pipit, with never a thought of the dangers of the passage,
and he would stand and watch her with his heart in his mouth, and only
shake his grey head at her encouraging assertions that it was truly
truly as easy as easy.
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