"
"Then was it the beetles who were burying the robin-redbreast?" I
gasped.
"I suspect so," said Godfather Gilpin. "But we will go and see."
He actually knocked a book down in his hurry to get his hat, and when I
helped him to pick it up, and said, "Why, godfather, you're as bad as I
was about Taylor's _Sermons_," he said, "I am an old fool, my dear. I
used to be very fond of insects before I settled down to the work I'm at
now, and it quite excites me to go out into the fields again."
I never had a nicer walk, for he showed me lots of things I had never
noticed, before we got to the quarry field; and then I took him straight
to the place where the bit of soft earth was, and there was nothing to
be seen, and the earth was quite smooth and tidy. But when he poked with
his stick the ground was very soft, and after he had poked a little we
saw some nut-brown feathers, and we knew it was Robin's grave.
And I said, "Don't poke any more, please. I wanted to bury him with
rose-leaves, but the beetles were dressed in black, and I gave them
leave, and I think I'll put a cross over him, because I don't think it's
untrue to show that he was buried by the Brothers of Pity."
Godfather Gilpin quite agreed with me, and we made a nice mound (for I
had brought my spade), and put the best kind of cross, and afterwards I
made a wreath of forget-me-nots to hang on it.
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