Aileen Aroon, A Memoir Part 37

"Alas! alas! the something _did_ come, but it wasn't nice. It took the shape of a decanter of water and an old boot.

"One night p.u.s.s.y Mirram had stayed out very much longer, and Eenie had gone to bed crying, because she thought she would never, never see her Mirram more.

"Thoughtless Mirram! At that moment she was once again on the roof, and the kittie's face was at the pigeon-hole. Mirram was sitting up in the most coaxing manner possible.

"'Come out again,' she was saying to kittie, 'come out again. Do come out to--'

"She didn't see that terrible black cat stealing up behind; but she heard the low threatening growl, and sprang round to confront her and defend herself.

"The fight was fierce and terrible while it lasted, and poor Mirram got the worst of it. The black cat had well-nigh killed her.

"'Oh!' she sobbed, as she dropped bitter, blinding tears on the roof,--'oh, if I had never left my mistress! Oh, dear! oh, dear!

whatever shall I do?'

"You see Mirram was very sad and sorrowful now; but then, unfortunately, the repentance came when it was too late."

"Thank you," Ida said, when I had finished; "I like the description of the garden ever so much. Now tell me something about birds; I'll shut my eyes and listen."

"But won't you be tired, dear?" said my wife.

"No, auntie," was the reply; "and I won't go to sleep. I never tire hearing about birds, and flowers, and woods, and wilds, and everything in nature."

"Here is a little bit, then," I said, "that will just suit you, Ida. It is short. That is a merit. I call it--"

ABOUT SUMMER SONGS AND SONGSTERS.

"Sweet is the melody that at this season of the year arises from every feathered songster of forest, field, and lea. I am writing to-day out in the fields, seated, I might say, in the very lap of Nature--my county is the very wildest and prettiest in all mid-England--and I cannot help throwing down my pen occasionally to watch the motions or listen to the singing of some or other of my wild pets. Nothing will convince me that I am not as well known in the woods as if I were indeed a denizen thereof. The birds, at all events, know me, and they do not fear me, because I never hurt or frighten them.

"High overhead yonder, and dimly seen against the light grey of a cloud, is the skylark. He is at far too great a height for me to see his head with the naked eye, so I raise the lorgnettes, and with these I can observe that even as he sings he turns his head earthwards to where, in her cosy gra.s.s-lined nest among the tender corn, sits his pretty speckled mate. He is singing to his mate. Yonder, perched on top of the hedgerow, is my friend the yellow-hammer. He is arrayed in pinions of a deeper, brighter orange now. Is it of that he is so proud? is it because of that that there comes ever and anon in his short and simple song a kind of half-hysterical note of joy? Nay, _I_ know why he sings so, because I know where his nest is, and what is in it.

"In the hollow of an old, old tree, bent and battered by the wind and weather, the starling has built, and the male bird trills his song on the highest branch, but in a position to be seen by his mate. Not much music in his song, yet he is terribly in earnest about the matter, and I've no doubt the hen admires him, not only for the green metallic gloss of his dark coat, but because he is trying to do his best, and to her his gurgling notes are far sweeter than the music of merle, or the song of the nightingale herself.

"But here is something strange, and it may be new to our little folk.

There are wee modest mites of birds in the woods and forests, that really do not care to be heard by any other living ears than those of their mates. I know where there is the nest of a rose-linnet in a bush of furze, and I go and sit myself softly down within a few feet of it, and in a few minutes back comes the male bird; he has been on an errand of some kind. He seats himself on the highest twig of a neighbouring bush. He is silent for a time, but he cannot be so very long; and so he presently breaks out into his tender songlet, but so soft and low is his ditty, that at five yards' distance methinks you would fail to hear it.

There are bold singers enough in copse and wild wood without him. The song of the beautiful chaffinch is clear and defiant. The mavis or speckled thrush is not only loud and bold in his tones, but he is what you might term a singer of humorous songs. His object is evidently to amuse his mate, and he sings from early morning till quite late, trying all sorts of trick notes, mocking and mimicking every bird within hearing distance. He even borrows some notes from the nightingale, after the arrival of that bird in the country; a very sorry imitation he makes of them, doubtless, but still you can recognise them for all that.

"Why is it we all love the robin so? Many would answer this question quickly enough, and with no attempt at a.n.a.lysis, and their reply would be, 'Oh, because he deserves to be loved.' This is true enough; but let me tell you why I love him. Though I never had a caged robin, thinking it cruel to deprive a dear bird of its liberty, I always do all I can to make friends with it wherever we meet. I was very young when I made my first acquaintance with Master Robin. We lived in the country, and one time there was a very hard winter indeed; the birds came to the lawn to be fed, but one was not content with simple feeding, and so one colder day than usual he kept throwing himself against a lower pane in the parlour window--the bright, cheerful fire, I suppose, attracted his notice.

"'You do look so cosy and comfortable in that nice room,' he seemed to say; 'think of my cold feet out in this dreary weather.'

"My dear mother--she who first taught me to love birds and beasts, and all created things--did think of his cold feet. She opened the window, and by-and-by he came in. He would have preferred the window left open, but being given to understand that this would interfere materially with family arrangements, he submitted to his semi-imprisonment with charming grace, and perched himself on top of a picture-frame, which became his resting-place when not busy picking up crumbs, or drinking water or milk, through all the livelong winter. We were all greatly pleased when one day he threw back his pert wee head and treated us to a song. And it was always while we were at dinner that he sang.

"'I suppose,' he seemed to say, 'you won't object to a little music, will you?' Then he would strike up.

"But when the winter wore away he gave us to understand he had an appointment somewhere; and so he was allowed to go about his business.

"My next adventure with a robin happened thus. I, while still a little boy, did a very naughty thing. By reading sea-stories I got enamoured of a sea life, and determined to run away from my old uncle, with whom I was residing during the temporary absence of my parents on the Continent. The old gentleman was not over kind to me--_that_ helped my determination, no doubt. I did not get very far away--I may mention this at once--but for two nights and days I stayed in the heart of a spruce-pine wood, living on bread-and-cheese and whortleberries. My bed was the branches of the pines, which I broke off and spread on the ground, and all day my constant companion was a robin. I think he hardly ever left me. I am, or was, in the belief that he slept on me.

Be this as it may, he picked up the crumbs I scattered for him, and never forgot to reward me with a song. While singing he used to perch on a branch quite close overhead, and sang so very low, though sweetly, that I fully believed he sang for me alone. After you have read this you will readily believe, that there may have been a large foundation of truth in the beautiful tale of 'The Babes in the Wood.' Before nor since my childish escapade, I never knew a robin so curiously tame as the one I met in the spruce-pine wood.

"Birds take singular fancies for some people. I know a little girl who when a child had a great fancy for straying away by herself into the woods. She was once found fast asleep and almost covered with wild birds. Some might tell me the birds were merely keeping their feet warm at the girl's expense. I have a very different opinion on the subject.

"Robins usually build in a green bank at the foot of a large tree, and lay four or five lightish yellow or dusky eggs; but I have found their nests in thorn-bushes. In the romantic Isle of Skye all small birds build in the rocks, because there are no trees there, and few bushes.

In a cliff, for example, close to the sea, if not quite overhanging it, you will find at the lower part the nests of larks, finches, linnets, and other small birds; on a higher reach the nests of thrushes and blackbirds; higher still pigeons build; and near the top sea-gulls and birds of prey, including the owl family.

"There is a short branch line not far from where I live, which ends five miles from the main artery of traffic. In the corner of a truck which had been lying idle at the little terminus for some time, a pair of robins built their nest, and the hen was sitting on five eggs when it became necessary to use the truck.

"'Don't disturb the nest,' said the kindly station-master to his men; 'put something over it. But I daresay the bird will forsake it; she's sure to do so.'

"But the bird did nothing of the kind, and although she had a little railway journey gratis, once a day at least, to the main line and back, she stuck to her nest, and finally reared her family to fledglings.

"Robins are early astir in the morning; their song is the first I hear.

They sing, too, quite late at night; they also sing all the year round; and it is my impression, on the whole, that they like best to trill forth when other birds are silent.

"The song-birds of our groves are neither jealous of each other nor do they hate each other. Down at the foot of my lawn I have a large shallow pan placed, which is kept half-filled with water in summer. I can see it from my bedroom window, and it is very pleasant to watch the birds having a bath in the morning. There is neither jealousy nor hatred displayed during the performance of this most healthful operation. I sometimes see blackbirds, thrushes, and sparrows all tubbing at one time, and quite hilarious over it.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

HARRY'S HOLIDAY--KING JOHN; OR, THE TALE OF A TUB--SINDBAD; OR, THE DOG OF PENELLAN.

"Country life,--let us confess it, Man will little help to bless it, Yet, for gladness there We may readily possess it In its native air.

"Rides and rambles, sports and farming, Home, the heart for ever warming, Books and friends and ease, Life must after all be charming, Full of joys like these."

Tupper.

"I'm not sure, Ida, that you will like the following story. There is truth in it, though, and a moral mixed up with it which you may unravel if you please. I call it--"

HARRY'S HOLIDAY.

"The hero of my little story was a London boy. Truth is, he had spent all the days and years of his young life in town. I do not think that he had ever, until a certain great event in his life took place, seen even the suburbs of the great city in which it was his lot to reside.

His whole world consisted of stone walls, so to speak, of an interminable labyrinth of streets and lanes and terraces, for ever filled with a busy mult.i.tude, hurrying to and fro in the pursuit of their avocations. I believe he got to think at last that there was nothing, that there _could_ be nothing beyond this mighty London; and of country life, with all its joys and pleasures, he knew absolutely nothing. A tree to him was merely a dingy, sooty kind of shrub, that grew in the squares; flowers were gaudy vegetables used in window decorations; a lark was a bird that spent all its life in a box-cage, chiefly, in the neighbourhood of Seven Dials. As to trees growing in woods and in forests where the deer and the roe live wild and free; as to flowers carpeting the fields with a splendour of bloom; as to larks mounting high in air to troll their happy songs--he had not even the power of conception. True, he had read of such things, just as he had read of the moon as seen through a telescope, and the one subject was just as vague to him as the other.

"Harry at this time was, I fear, just a little sceptical. He lacked in a great measure that excellent quality, without which there would be very little real happiness in this world--I mean faith. He only believed in what he really saw and could understand, from which, of course, you will readily infer that his mind was neither a very comprehensive nor a very clever one. And you are right.

"Harry was not a strong boy; his face was pale, his eyes were large and l.u.s.trous, his poor little arms and legs were far from robust, and you could have found plenty of country lads who measured twice as much round the chest as Harry. Well, his parents, who really did all they could for their boy, were very pleased when one morning the postman brought them a letter from the far north, inviting their little son to come and spend a long autumn holiday at the farm of Dunryan, in the wilds of Aberdeenshire. He was to go all alone in the steamboat, simply in care of the steward, who promised to be very kind to him and look well after his comforts. And so he did, too; but I think that from the very moment that the great ship began to drop down the river, leaving the city behind it, with all its smoke and its gloom, Harry began to be a new boy. A new current of life seemed to begin to circulate in his veins, a better state of feeling to take possession of his soul. There was no end to the wonders Harry saw during his voyage to Aberdeen. The sea itself was a sight which until now he could not have imagined--could not have even dreamed of. Then there was the long line of wonderful coast.

He had seen a panorama, but that couldn't have been very large, because it was contained within the four stone walls of a concert-room. But here was a panorama gradually unrolling itself before his astonished gaze hundreds and hundreds of miles in extent. No wonder that his eyes dilated as he beheld it: the black, beetling cliffs that frowned over the ocean's depths; the beautiful sandy beaches; the broad bays, with cities slumbering in the mists beyond; the green-topped hills; the waving woods; the houses; the palaces; and the grey old ruined castles that told of the might and strength of ages past and gone. All and every one of these seemed to whisper to Harry--seemed to tell him that there were more wonderful things even in this world than he had ever before believed in.

"When night came on, the stars shone out--stars more beautiful than he had ever seen before--so clear, so large, so bright. And they carried his thoughts far, far beyond the earth. In their pure presence he felt a better boy than ever he had felt before, but at the same time he could not help feeling ashamed of that feeling of unbelief that had possessed him in London. He was beginning to have faith already--a little, at all events. Were I to tell you of all Harry's adventures, and all the strange sights he saw ere he reached Aberdeen, I would have quite a long story to relate. His uncle met him at the pier with a dog-cart, into which he helped him, the handsome, spirited horse giving just one look round, to see who was getting up. When he saw this mite of a hero of ours,--

"'Oh,' said the horse to himself, 'he won't make much additional weight.

I'd trot along with a hundred of such as he is.'

"So away they went. Now Harry had been taught to look upon London as the finest and prettiest town in the world; but when he rattled along the wide and magnificent streets of the capital of the north, he found ample reason to alter his opinion. Here was no smoke--here was a sun shining down from a sky of cerulean hue, and here were houses built apparently of the costliest and whitest of marble. On went the dog-cart, and the closely-built streets gave place to avenues and terraces, and rows of palatial buildings peeping up through the greenery of trees.

"Harry was a little tired that night before he reached the good farm of Dunryan; but his aunt and cousins were kindness itself, and after a bigger and nicer supper than ever he had eaten before in his life, he was shown to his snow-white couch, and the next thing he became conscious of was that the sun was shining broad and clearly into his chamber, and there was a perfect babel of sounds right down under his window, sounds that a country boy would easily have understood, but which were worse than Greek to Harry. He soon jumped out of bed, however, washed and dressed, and then opened the cas.e.m.e.nt and looked down. I have already told you that Harry's eyes were large, but the sight he now witnessed made him open them considerably wider than he had done for many a day. A vast courtyard crowded with feathered bipeds of every kind that could be imagined. Harry hurried on with his toilet, so that he might be able to go downstairs and examine them more closely.