THE SONG OF THE FOREST.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1191, 28 December 1894, Page 12

THE SONG OF THE FOREST.

THE ' TUPS ' STORY.

BY CECIL THORNTON

I am a Tui. My perch is amongst the highest branches of the totara, the matai and the rimu. To me, high in those arboral bowers, thero has been revealed a glimpse of the life of two of those human beings, inhabitants of the lower earth. And that glimpse, slight as it has been, has awakened an interest • in my bird heart, for I saw the story's bei ginning and have seen somewhat of its end. I know else but little of men and that little lis tinged with dislike and with fear. Some of ! my kin have fallen at their hands, and my I old friends, the bloom-covered rata, the redberried kahikatea and the other forest giants, amidst whose gray moss clung branches I was wo.it to disport, the scenes of my courtship—- ! every branch dear with rememberance, the niches where I built my nest and where I so often have found shelter, these, all these have ! gono, before the blasting presence of man. The trees I loved have tottered, fallen, dried and sunk into ashes through bis power. But it is not of my own life I am going to tell you, little ones, as you chirp so at mo with widely open mouths, but of these earth-bound creatures that deal death and destruction all around. I have chanced, as I have said, to know something about two of them. That little has been supplemented by what your old uncle I Tuiwiti, who was caught by them once and caged and then was set free again, has told me concerning them. And the very manner of his regaining the liberty he was dying for has its place in my story. In the valley yonder, where the groat knobby kie-kie covered miro bows, one of the these invaders of the old forest dominion took his stand. And around him he felled all but the patch there at the foot of the cliff between it and the river. And hero, my little nestlings, I had some othor ones like you, with gaping mouths and little ill-shapod just like yours, and affrighted little hearts* that sought their safety and shelter underneath my wing and, findiny it, were happy. And hero the settler's daughter often came. She was very different from her father. He was busied with the art of devastation, while she grieved that the forest, the wreath of green untrammelled beamy, the majesty of the totara, the grace of houi, and the thousand charms of the bush land were all to be swept away. And she had pleaded-with her father for the preservation of this piece, this stretch of bush betwixt the hill and the river, and her father had yielded to her, for ho loved her. When the work of the afternoon was done, and time hung heavily upon her hands, she was often glad to come down to the placo where my nest was built, and sit down listening to the river' as it rippled by the banks, to the murmur of the breeze as it came along the valley, and to the song your father sang. These visits at first troubled me. But I grew used to them before long, and even welcomed her when she came to the green fern bank and looked up at the patch of blue sky through the miro. I used to Avatch her while your father —your gay, handsome father, little ones —sang to her the song he sang, when, in days gone past, he came courting me. And she, in her turn, sang back again, and, as if in rivalry of his rich melody, would pour forth a flood of music from her slender throat. No female tui ever,sang as she sang, and your father himself scarcely surpassed the beauty and purity of every ringing note. One day —I remember it well—when she was lying with her head against the fern-bank, singing out some wild, passionate harmony, unlike anything I had ever heard before, with her hands idly plucking the soft toadia fronds, as if in mere wantonness'of thought, I saw a bush move but a littledistance off, and a man was there looking with wondering eyes on the girl, pouring out her heart. I started from my perch in alarm, and my movement startled her. She«sprang to her feet —lycopodium tendril caught in the moshes of her sunny hair—and she fronted the intruder. Ho came forward with a plea for pardon, while his soft blue eyes looked full into hers. She was pleased with the low homage those eyes gave her, and thus a friendship arose between them. It was growing dark ere he resumed his way. When, the next afternoon, he came again, she did not cease her song, but the rather sang to him alone. He listened, his eyes fixed upon the songstress as she sat among the creepers, the mosses, and the ferns. Day after day, in those summer days, he contrived to come there, and she came without fail to her parlour, as she called it, and. thus their friendship proved to have been but the dawn of love.

But men and women, fledglings, are not like us birds of the air, for whom Nature provides eo bountifully. They are bound by chains we wot not of. These two Avere poor, and their poverty, Tuiwiti, the traveller, says, would very easily have prevented them from building a nest, hoAvever humble, there upon the ground. But, listening to your father as she had, the girl's voice had grown stronger — oh, how I loved to listen to it, in that riverside strip of bush, singing your father's song of the forest —and as the one she loved had not the power to provide for her, she determined to go to the city, where men congregate, and to sing there, so that she might got what they—they two only-needed, and then she thought happiness would be theirs for ever. So to the toAvn she Avent, and cultivated her voice. They said that this was necessary, as if one who could imitate your father's notes as she did could ever be said to have Avanted cultivation. She charmed men—it Avas no wonderj for she had charmed the tuis. Tuiwiti heard all this, for ho fell into a snare and was imprisoned and taken to the town where she was. And one afternoon in spring, with'his poor head breaking for Avant of the friends and the freedom that he had lost, the song of the bush came to him and he sang it. She chanced to hoar him as she passed by, and the old familiar notes fell strangely upon her memory. So she bought him and gave him his liberty. Tuiwiti was free once more, and he ever thinks of the woman who gave him the wish of his heart. But alas, he brought mo sad news of her. He said that she had sung the old song to him, but the notes were false, her heart was not in the music ; men clustered thick around her, eager for love. She had all but forgotten the forest. Meanwhile in the denseness of the bush her lover laboured early and late, from the outburst of the dawn till sombre night had* drawn her dark Avings over the land. When my little ones were able to fly and I was free for a time, I was used to fly from my favourite haunts and Avatch him. I took an interest in him, oven if he did slay the forest, for the girl I loved had loved him. Nearly every seventh day bo somehow came

.to the spot that she had frequented so of old, and took, so it seemed to me, a sad delight in plucking the fronds on the the fern bank as if her head had rested there once again upon its springy softness. Thus time flew on. Was it one or two nests that I had built ? one or two broods that I had hatched and cast loose to sport and sing amongst the trees p I have quite forgotten. I only know I saw the girl once more. She came down to the old trysting place and met her old love there as in the olden time. He came to meet her, but he was changed from the blight joyous youth she had known—work and worry had laid their claims upon him. But even now hope lit up his face as he strode through the fern to meet her —hope lit up those sad blue eyes as he stood gazing at her. She, was calm and self-possessed, as she took his hand in hers, but a nervous tremor played about her lips as she spoke. I remember tho words she said.

' Ihave come totellyou,Harry, you are free.' ' Suppose that I do not want my freedom ?' he said.

' It would be better for me and for you.' Her eyes faltered and fell beneath his gaze. His mouth had grown very stern. He looked at her for a moment, then began—' I accept my freedom;' and then, in that gentle way of his, but, with his eyes very bright and a hard glitter in them, he turned the conversation on to lighter things, and laughed about broken hearts and ruined lives, and was so very gay and seemed so very glad that the woman wondered. It had cost her a little to break the news. She had expected indignant wrath, but raillery was turned upon her. He bid her good-bye, and went to where his horse was tied, close by the river. The woman watched him as ho went. 'He does not mind,' she said; 'I did not think —' she went on and broke off, and thefi, with a sigh, ' I wish —' but the actual wish was unuttered, for she turned, and slowly began to climb the hill behind.

He did not care! I think if I could have told all I'knew her unspoken wish might have been granted. He came for one last visit to the old place—but it is of little benefit to rocallall that I saw then, only my knowledge of man was increased and I wondered the more at him. I wondered why a man should smile and jeer at his own breaking heart, and a woman regret that the wound she had inflicted had not bled tho more.

I never saw him again. That last visit to the old place gavo mo my last glimpse of him. He must have sold his farm and gone away. He disappeared out of my life. I was sorry for I had taken an interest in him. As for tho woman I heard of her once again. Two survey men wero lunching- at the top of the hill yonder, and one spoke her name. She had been a singer, so they said, but her voice had failed her. Bub, fortunately in their opinion, she had married a rich and a great man —so ib did not matter. Then they began to talk of tho 'trig.' stations and spoke words of which I knew not the meaning. Thus she also died out of my life, only the memory of her still survives, and that may live till memory itself be dead. Ah, my little nestlings ? has this story of human lifo interested you. It has puzzled me, my little ones, puzzled me much. I told your uncle Tuiwiti what tho surveyors had talked of and what they had said about her.

He only shook his head sadly. ' I thought it was not right with her, for when she sang-the forest song to me, her notes had gone astray and it was not what she had learnt. .The notes did not come from her heart, my sister. - She had lost the love of the forest and she could not sing the good old forest song your husband taught her. I only wish that I could do tho same for her as she has done for mo.'

I wonder how and why she lost the Song of the Forest.