him more contented and happy; we had tried to tame him, and often coaxed him, but he did not respond to kindness and become more amiable. At last we put his father, a four-year-old budgie, into the flight with him. Pa was a level-headed, sedate budgie, and we thought that perhaps he might bring Samson to heel somewhat.
THE ADVENTURES OF THE PRODIGAL SON
This later move was also doomed to failure, for Samson bullied the old man terribly. Not one good feature did he seem to have inherited from his parents, and we were about to give him up as a bad job when one day, quite by accident, we found the cause of the trouble.
In the garden, near to the flight where Samson exercised, was a bird-bath. Here many wild birds came to drink and to pick up the crumbs which we put out for them in the hard times, when natural food was scarce.
We had previously noted that when the dull-looking sparrows came to feed and bathe, Samson habitually turned up his nose (beak in his case) in an expression of contempt and muttered something which sounded very much like ‘Swine!’ Surely it was not these harmless creatures who came and went as they pleased which made Samson discontented? No! he considered them far below his dignity; it was another visitor to our garden who was the root of the mischief.
She was beautiful; her body was sleek and very shapely; the jet-black feathers with their even markings and over all a wonderful glossy sheen, suited her well. Her black feet; brilliant yellow beak and bold black eyes completed her ravishing ‘ensemble’.
Miss Delilah Starling was as bad as she was beautiful, and her flashing eyes were filled with cunning. She was feared by most of the others who came to feed. Many a poor little sparrow received a vicious peck for having the temerity to come too near.
We noticed that Miss Delilah hung round the flight where Samson lived and openly flirted with him. One day we saw them in serious conclave, so decided to see what was ‘in the wind’. We did not get all of the conversation, but we did hear something like this—
Samson: “If only I could get out of here! I feel positively stifled!”
Delilah: “My dear, a big strong handsome man like you should be king of the open spaces.”
Samson: “Oh, Miss Delilah, you make me feel my position. If I were out of this prison, I would make you my Queen.”
Delilah: “You wonderful cave-man! You shall be out of here. Listen, and I will tell you of a plan I’ve thought out. . . . Sh-h, bend a little closer, we might be overheard. . . .”
We missed the rest of the conversation, but I thought it wise to remove Samson before more damage should be done by this dark temptress, so I took the net, and prepared to take him from that flight. As I bent my head to enter the low doorway of the flight I felt a rush of wind past my ear, just over my shoulder, and I had the horrible experience of seeing Samson flying swiftly through the air towards Cottingley.
This cunning witch of a Delilah had whispered and told Samson not to dart high and hit the safety portion over the door, but to dive low past my head. He had done so, and was free!
Our hearts were heavy; we knew what lay ahead of Samson. The Autumn had set in; the nights were cold and heavy with dew, maybe mist and frost. The grasses had long since shed their seeds; food was hard to obtain even for the wild birds, who were more experienced than Samson. Only a slow and painful death from starvation awaited him unless he had the sense to return, but we had little hope of that, knowing him.
On first obtaining his freedom Samson forgot all about Delilah, so exciting was his new-found liberty; he spent the first few hours racing, darting, looping and gliding in sheer ecstasy. It was painful yet wonderful to behold; budgies are like swifts in flight, a fact you will soon realize if ever your pet escapes.
It had been early morning when Samson had made his getaway and his crop had been almost empty; so quickly had the dash been planned that he had had no chance to replenish it with seed. His exertions made him hungry, so he fed on grass which was mostly withered and not very palatable, and which he soon found was not very sustaining.
His hunger temporarily abated, he bethought himself of Delilah and his ‘kingdom’, so away to the chimney-stacks he hied in search of her.
Samson did not get the reception he had anticipated. Delilah saw him approaching. “Here comes the little swanker,” she said to her companions. “Let’s give him beans!”
Delilah had betrayed him to the Philistines; they set about him with a will. It was fortunate for Samson that he was quick in flight, for he managed to outwit the attackers, but not before he had received many wounds and lost a few feathers.
He espied a huge tree and paused in his flight to rest; but to his horror a big black bird, a giant to him and possessing a terrible beak, snapped at him as he would have alighted on the bough. Luck again saved him; a side swerve and a nose-dive beneath the branch and he was away, but he left his tail in the beak of a big black crow.
Samson was in a terrible state by eventide. He had been chased hither and thither, and now the rooks coming in to roost frightened the very life out of him; so, seeing an opening at the top of a barn, he flew in and settled on a rafter in the gathering darkness in an endeavour to sleep and so regain his strength.
He did not remain undisturbed very long. As the night closed in, and he was dozing with his head tucked beneath his wing, something ghostly brushed past him and he awoke with a start. A bat had dropped from its inverted position above him and flapped its ungainly wings in flight to the opening through which Samson had entered the barn.
Samson shivered with fright; he thought of the cosy, peaceful aviary which he had left that morning, and felt anything but a king just then. Suddenly the moon broke through the clouds and a dull shaft of light shone through the opening straight on to him—and also on to a pair of flashing eyes belonging to a great barn owl, who had a horrible curved beak much stronger than his, and long sharp talons. The owl was about to seize him, to make supper from his well-nourished body, when that tiny flash of light into his eyes made him blink, and before he had recovered Samson had shot like a bullet from a rifle through that hole—into the night.
He had ‘wind up’ properly now; he flew as though all the devils in Hades were on his tail—or where it used to be. The moon went back behind the clouds, the night was pitch black, the wind bitterly cold, but on went Samson in sheer terror, until at last he could fly no further, and he dropped like a stone . . . he knew not where.
Fortunately, without encountering any obstacle, he fell into some long wet grass, which partially broke his fall, and he lay shivering, too frightened and too weak to move, scarcely daring to breathe.
Sounds of things moving in the darkness filled him with fear; then as the hours passed he realized he was almost dead with hunger, so he nibbled at the wet grass as he lay. It was terrible stuff after the sweet oily seeds to which he had been accustomed before his escape, and he bitterly repented his folly as he cursed the black-hearted traitress who had let him down.
Dawn came at last and with it Samson noticed a number of sparrows flying overhead. He recognized one or two as the ‘swine’ who used to feed at the bird-table and bath, outside his old flight.
A weary, repentant Samson shook the water from his body and flew after the sparrows—‘He would fain have eaten the husks which the swine did eat’—but the sparrows were having none of him and his highfalutin’ airs, so they set
