He touched his warm red breast
with his beak, fluffed out and shook his feathers, and, swelling his
throat, poured forth his small, entranced song. It was a gay, brief,
jaunty thing, but pure, joyous, gallant, liquid melody. There was dainty
bravado in it, saucy demand and allurement. It was addressed to some
invisible hearer of the tender sex, and wheresoever she might be
hidden--whether in great branch or low thicket or hedge--there was
hinted no doubt in her small wooer's note that she would hear it and
in due time respond. Mount Dunstan, listening, even laughed at its
confident music. The tiny thing uttering its Call of the World--jubilant
in the surety of answer!
Having flung it forth, he paused a moment and waited, his small
head turned sideways, his big, round, dew-bright black eye roguishly
attentive. Then with more swelling of the throat he trilled and rippled
gayly anew, undisturbed and undoubting, but with a trifle of insistence.
Then he listened, tried again two or three times, with brave chirps
and exultant little roulades. "Here am I, the bright-breasted, the
liquid-eyed, the slender-legged, the joyous and conquering! Listen to
me--listen to me. Listen and answer in the call of God's world.
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