Page:Hans Andersen's Fairy Tales (1888).djvu/56

 an egg, with which he besmeared the sparrow all over, and then laid the gold leaf upon it; so that the mother sparrow was now gilded from head to tail. But she thought not of her appearance but trembled in every limb. Then the soap-maker tore a little-piece out of the red lining of his jacket, cut notches in it, so that it looked like a cock’s comb, and stuck it on the bird’s head. ‘‘Now you shall see gold-jacket fly,” said the old man, and he released the sparrow, which flew away in deadly terror, with the sun-light shining upon her. How she did glitter, all the sparrows, and even a crow, who is a knowing old boy, were scared at the sight; yet still they followed it to discover what foreign bird it could be. Driven by anguish and terror she flew homewards, almost ready to sink to the earth for want of strength. The flock of birds that were following increased, and some even tried to peck her.

“Look at him! Look at him!” they all cried. “Look at him! Look at him!” cried the young ones as their mother approached the nest, but they did not know her. “That must be a young peacock, for he glitters in all colours, it quite hurts one’s eyes to look at him, as mother told us; ‘tweet,’ this is the beautiful.” And then they pecked the bird with their little beak, so that she was quite unable to get into the nest, and was too much exhausted even to say “tweet,” much less to say “I am your mother.” So the other birds fell upon the sparrow and pulled out feather after feather, till she sunk bleeding into the rose-bush.

“You poor creature,” said the roses, “be at rest, we will hide you, lean your little head against us.”

The sparrow spread out her wings once more, then drew them in close to her, and lay dead amongst the roses, her fresh and lovely neighbours.

“Tweet,” sounded from the nest, “where can our mother be staying? it is quite unaccountable. Can this be a trick of hers to show us that we are now to take care of ourselves? She has left us the house as an inheritance, but as it cannot belong to us all when we have families, who is to have it?”

“It won’t do for you all to stay with me when I increase my household with a wife and children,” remarked the youngest.

“I shall have more wives and children than you,” said the second.

“But I am the eldest,” cried a third.

Then they all became angry, beat each other with their wings, pecked with their beaks, till one after another bounced out of the nest. There they lay in a rage, holding their heads on one side and twinkling the eye that looked upwards. This was their way of looking sulky. They could all fly a little, and by practice they soon learnt to do so much better. At length they agreed upon a sign by which they might be able to recognise each other, in case they should meet in the world after they had separated. This sign was to be the cry of “tweet, tweet,” and a scratching on the ground three times with the left foot. The youngster, who was left behind in the nest, spread himself out as broad as ever he could, he was the householder now. But his glory did not last long; for during that night red flames of fire burst through the windows of the cottage, they seized the thatched roof and blazed up frightfully; the whole house was burned down and the