There were two here, side by side, but neither was quick enough to parry our friend’s lightning lunges, after he had beaten down their guard with his wings; and they, too, got up and winged into the leaden, frowning sky.  The others did not wait.  They had seen all they wanted to, apparently, and would take no part in the play.  They faded out among the drifting snowflakes, over the still, white fields, and our thrush was left to the lawn, and the bread, and the swarming chaffinches, whom he easily kept aloof, and—­yes, there was no getting away from it—­the one thrush on the summer-house who, you will note, had never moved.  But when he looked he found that thrush was not on the summer-house, but on the lawn, eating bread; and when he flew down to the lawn to investigate—­he flew and landed very clumsily—­he made a discovery that seemed to surprise him; or did he already know it?  Anyway, the thrush on the lawn was a lady, and—­well, what would you?  The cripple balanced as well as he could, and looked foolish.  It was all he could do.

The day passed swiftly, and faded out in blinding snow.  Most of the time the cripple stood motionless, watching his companion and guarding his swept circle, and, as often as he could, he fed.  And neither then nor at any other time, except once when the gardener nearly trod upon him before he would move, did he utter a sound.  The last glimmer of day showed him still at his post, motionless, all but invisible.  But he roosted, as a matter of fact, in the privet-hedge, on the south side of the summer-house, and this time he was not alone.

The day had been trying enough, with its fights and its three cats, which passed within reach of him, and could have slain him—­for his injuries made him slow to get under way—­if they had not failed to see him, because so still.  The night, however, was a clouded terror.

Certainly he went to bed—­if one may so call it—­full, if not warm exactly; but that was the only advantage.  It snowed with ghastly, relentless steadiness, and it blew like the hacking of sharp knives.

But through it all, because full fed, the cripple, with all his handicap, and his lady companion lived; lived to see the hard dawn pale tardily; lived to watch the kind gardener—­under strict orders assuredly, or he would never have done it—­sweep a space clear on the lawn and spread food for the birds; lived to ruffle his feathers and fly down; and lived to see the thaw which came that afternoon, when the warm sou’-wester came romping over the land, and winter’s last stand was overcome by the forces of spring, and all the wild breathed a sigh of relief and went abroad gayly to feed.

But the cripple lived to see other things.  For there came a day, about a week later, when our cripple, who had been “keeping company” all the time with his lady friend, heard the whole dawn awaken to a sudden mighty chorus of thrush song.  I don’t know why they all chose to burst into song thus as at a given signal, but they did, and the effect upon the cripple and his companion was curious.  He had just landed upon the top of the summer-house on his one leg, in a particularly awkward and unbalanced manner, and he perched, listening, as if rooted to the spot, and with something nearly approaching horror in his eyes, it seemed to me.