Chatterbox, 1906 Part 18

'Look here, Mother,' he said, pointing down to the ground, 'this chair was full of gold pieces. No wonder it was so heavy to drag home!'

'Gold pieces! Oh, no!' she said, shaking her head. 'You must have made a mistake, my boy.'

'Look at them!' said George, stooping down and picking up a handful of guineas from the ma.s.s of dust and dirt and horsehair that was strewn on the floor of the yard. 'They're guineas right enough; they came pouring out like water when I got to the middle of the chair.'

'They _look_ like guineas,' said the poor woman, trembling with anxiety.

'Oh, George, if they should be, and if they are rightfully ours, then Father could get to Bath and be cured, and you could be apprenticed to a cabinet-maker, like your poor father before you.'

'They _are_ guineas,' said George, stoutly. 'Let's show them to Grandfather--he will know; and if they are--and I _know_ they are'--he repeated, 'some of the money must be spent on you, Mother; I won't have it all go to apprentice me. If that ever comes off, you must have a new gown and cloak to sign my articles in,' and George got up from the dirty ground and gave his mother a hearty hug.

Grandfather gave his verdict: the guineas were real, and had the effigy of George I. stamped on them, and there were just a hundred of them, all told.

Of course, the news of the widow's lucky find was soon known, and the auctioneer claimed the money, but the clergyman of the parish supported the widow's claim, and though the auctioneer went to law about it, he lost his case and had to pay the costs.

Later on in the year a happy family party went to a solicitor's office to sign George's indentures.

Grandfather was there, erect and well, for the Bath waters had done wonders for him. His widowed daughter hung on his arm in a fine new dress and cloak, and George, looking very important at the thought of being apprenticed to the first cabinet-maker in Wolverhampton, had everything on new from top to toe, and all this was the outcome of the purchase (for a shilling) of 'the old rosewood armchair.'

S. C.

[Ill.u.s.tration: "'Mother, this chair was full of gold pieces!'"]

[Ill.u.s.tration: "Set to the hardest and most menial work."]

STORIES FROM AFRICA.

II.--The Constant Prince.

[Ill.u.s.tration]

One summer's day, nearly five hundred years ago, a queen lay dying in the royal city of Lisbon. She was an English princess, daughter of our own John of Gaunt, bearing the loved name of her grandmother, good Queen Philippa, and she had been a helpful wife to her husband, King Joao of Portugal, and a wise and tender mother to the five lads who stood in bitter sorrow round her death-bed. Even now, as her life ebbed away, she roused herself to speak to them brave words of cheer and counsel, and, calling them close to her, gave to each a sword, bidding them, with her failing breath, to draw the blades only in the cause of truth and right, and in defence of the widow and the orphan.

A good cause it was in which the young princes went forth but a few weeks later. They had one and all refused to receive knighthood for some bloodless achievement at a tournament, and had begged to be allowed to win their spurs by an expedition against the Moorish pirates, who, from their strongholds on the African coast, swept the Mediterranean Sea, and carried off numberless prisoners into cruel bondage. It was in the cause of many a widow and orphan, whose bread-winner toiled in some Moorish seaport, or below the decks of a pirate galley, that the Portuguese princes drew their mother's last gifts on African soil.

So well did they acquit themselves that, after one day of desperate fighting, the city of Ceuta, one of the most valuable of the pirate strongholds, fell into the hands of the three elder lads. Enrique, the third brother, who was not only a gallant fighter, but so skilful a general that our own Henry V. offered him a command in his army, so distinguished himself that his father would have knighted him first, had he not refused to be preferred before his elders.

But, of all the five, there was no more eager Crusader than the youngest, Fernando, who, though a mere child, had been the first to suggest the expedition, and who longed beyond everything to follow in his brothers' footsteps. Eighteen years, however, pa.s.sed away before another such expedition could be undertaken, and by that time the eldest of the five brothers, Duarte (or Edward), the namesake of his great-uncle, our gallant Black Prince, had succeeded his father as King of Portugal. From him Enrique and Fernando won permission for another attack upon the Moors, and set forth, full of the hope of taking Tangier as they had taken Ceuta. But Fernando's honours were not to be won with the sword. The Portuguese forces found themselves so far outnumbered that the brothers, bitterly disappointed, felt it necessary to retreat.

But worse was to come. There was a traitor in the Portuguese camp, who let the enemy know of the princes' movements, and when the starving, weary troops reached the coast at daybreak, they found themselves cut off from their ships.

The Moorish leader, Lyala ben Lyala, agreed to release the army in exchange for the city of Ceuta, Prince Fernando and some of the n.o.blest of his followers remaining as hostages, while news of the disaster and of the terms offered was carried to Lisbon. The royal prisoner and his companions were treated with all honour and courtesy, and a.s.sured that their captivity could only be a short one, for the Portuguese King would lose no time in redeeming his gallant brother.

But the Christian prince knew better. The city which had been so gallantly won from the infidel might not be lightly given back. Some say that Fernando himself sent a message to the King at Lisbon, forbidding him to weigh his brother's freedom against the fair prize of their first deed of arms. At any rate, he showed neither surprise nor dismay when the answer was returned that the King of Portugal would pay any sum the Moors could ask for his brother's ransom, but would not part with Ceuta.

It must have been heart-breaking work for the King and his brothers to agree with the decision of the Council, that the city must be held at the cost of the freedom of the youngest and best-beloved of their gallant band, even though they knew that Fernando himself would be the first to applaud them. Grief and anxiety must have added to the sickness of which King Duarte died a year later, leaving a child heir and much trouble and confusion behind him. Enrique left camp and court to live in seclusion at Algarve, and there gave himself up to the study of naval science and astronomy. His name is famous yet as 'Prince Henry the Navigator,' and his renown spread over Europe in his lifetime. But, as he planned and sent forth exploring expeditions or studied the stars in his long night watches, the wise prince's heart must have ached many a time at the thought of the younger brother, paying the penalty of their failure among the dark-skinned foe.

For the Moors, who had hoped to hoist the crescent once more over their ancient stronghold, wreaked a bitter vengeance on the man who would not plead for his own freedom.

Fernando and his companions, sons of the n.o.blest families in Portugal, were set to the hardest and most menial work, loaded with chains, and driven to their tasks with blows and threats. But no ill-usage could break the spirit of the prince, or induce him to send home entreaties for the only ransom his captors would accept. The lad who had promised at his dying mother's bedside to fight as become a Christian knight, was to show a higher courage than he had ever needed on the battle-field.

He, the n.o.blest born and the least robust of the captives, did his hard tasks with a diligence and patience which won the admiration even of his tormentors.

When the captives were shut at night into the dark and noisome dungeon where they slept, he would gather his companions about him and hearten them with his brave words, calling them brothers and comrades, and only grieving that he had led them to share his own ill-fortune. Complaints and murmurs were shamed into silence by his brave patience, and if ever the self-control of the weary, half-starved captives broke down and they quarrelled among themselves, the angry words were checked by the remembrance that nothing would so grieve the prince. And since

'The courage that bears, and the courage that dares, Are really one and the same,'

not one of Queen Philippa's sons proved more worthy of his knighthood than the youngest of the five.

The bitterest trial came when Fernando's health, always delicate, gave way altogether under his privations, and he could no longer do the tasks required of him. Even the comfort of his companions' presence was now denied him, and in his wretched cell he lay patiently through the stifling days, counting the hours until the tramp of feet and clank of chains told of the return of his friends from their long day's toil.

Then, if their warder was lenient, there would be a pause by the cell-door, and a moment's breathless waiting lest there should be no answer to their anxious question of how he did, lest the voice, that would still speak words of comfort and cheer through the darkness, should be silent for ever.

But, as the prince grew weaker, his courage and patience moved even his captors to mercy, and his friends were about him when, after seven years of slavery, the brave spirit pa.s.sed at length into the true freedom.

Thirty years later the body of Fernando was ransomed, in exchange for a Moorish prisoner, and laid in his native land; but his true monument is the city which his long captivity saved for Christendom. The days of such slavery as his are gone by. The galleys of the Moorish pirates no longer sweep the inland sea, and we shall have stories to tell by-and-by of the men who chased them from their strongholds. But Ceuta was won four hundred years earlier, by the swords which our English princess bequeathed to her sons, and was held by the seven years' brave patience of him who so worthily earned the name of 'El Principe Constante,' the Constant Prince.

MARY H. DEBENHAM.

PEEPS INTO NATURE'S NURSERIES.

II.--THE LIFE-HISTORY OF THE SOLE.

We can never fully understand an animal until we know its life-history, but we can give some sort of an account, at least, of its development from birth to death. With some creatures, as with b.u.t.terflies, moths, or birds, for example, this is easy enough, but with others this is by no means true. The life-history of the Sole is a case in point; only by the slow acc.u.mulation of facts has this been put together. But the result is most interesting, and without more ado we now proceed to relate it.

The cradle of the young sole, like that of its relatives, the plaice, turbot, and flounder, takes the form of a crystal globe of a jelly-like material, in the centre of which lies a smaller globe containing the germ which will grow into the young fish, a little store of food material, and a small quant.i.ty of oil, which seems to keep the whole afloat at the surface of the sea. This is the egg. It differs from the eggs of its relatives, in that the oil which it contains is distributed in the form of tiny drops, instead of being collected in one big drop, as in the turbot's eggs, for instance. The careful mother lays these eggs far out at sea and leaves them; if they were deposited near the land they would drift ash.o.r.e and be destroyed. And in the ill.u.s.tration (fig. 1, egg) you will see what this water-baby looks like just before he quits his cradle.

In less that a month the little sole has grown enough to enter the world, but he is strangely helpless; a tiny little creature, perfectly transparent, mouthless and finless, so that he must drift helplessly, whithersoever the currents carry him. Though mouthless, he is not hungry, for there remains within him a certain amount of the nourishing yolk, which was stored up for this purpose, in his crystal cradle. This little food reserve is the cause of the rounded swelling on the under surface of the young sole in the ill.u.s.tration (fig. 1, A and B). In this picture you should note, first of all, the curious shape of the head, which is, as yet, only roughly modelled. There is no mouth, and the eye, as yet, is colourless. Along the middle of the back there runs a high fin, transparent as gla.s.s, and this is continued round the tail and forwards to the swelling caused by the yolk-bag. Over the whole are scattered a few patches of colour, in the shape of spidery lines and blotches, as yet only just dense enough to attract attention.

At six days old, as you will see (fig, 1, C), he has grown darker, and has developed a mouth and a tiny pair of breast-fins; but beautiful he certainly is not, judged by human standards of beauty. It often happens, however, that the outward mark of ugliness is but the sign of hidden peculiarities of unusual interest. Up to this point this baby sole is very like any other fish-baby; but from now onwards it enters on a most remarkable career. At six days old he shows all the promise of a well-grown fish; that is to say, his body is round and tapering, he has an eye in each side of his head, and both sides of the body are alike in colour--in other words, he is symmetrical.

The beginning of the change (fig. 1, D) is indicated by a disposition of the growing fish to lie on one side--the left--and at the same time the left eye begins to change its position, moving from the side of the head towards the crown of it! In a short time this point is reached, and pa.s.sed, and not until the left eye has approached its fellow of the right side fairly closely does its progress stop! By this time the habit of lying on one side has become fixed, and the body has taken the characteristic shape of the sole. Thus, then, what appear to be the upper and under surfaces of the sole, are really the right and left sides, and this can easily be proved by a careful examination of the body, which, if it be placed on edge will be found to have a back or dorsal fin, and a pair of breast fins--one on either side, as in ordinary 'round' fishes.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 1.--Egg of Sole, and Stages in its Growth.]

The difference in the colouration of these two sides is a matter to which we must now refer. As everybody knows, the upper side is dark-coloured, while the under side is white. Why is this? Why are not the colours reversed, or why are not both sides coloured? These questions open up a most fascinating study--the use and meaning of the colours of animals. And you will find, when you come to look into the matter, that there is a very close relation between the colour of an animal and the nature of its surroundings. In the case of the sole, the brown upper surface, from its resemblance to the mud and sand at the bottom of the sea, serves to conceal it from the sharp eyes of prowling fishes on the look-out for a meal. A broad expanse of white would at once betray it to the enemy. No colour is developed on the under surface, for it would be a waste of energy to produce colour for a surface that was kept constantly concealed from view.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Fig. 2.--Full-grown Sole.]

Although, in our picture, all these fish can be seen quite plainly, in real life they are quite hard to find. The young, being well-nigh transparent as gla.s.s, are almost invisible as they float in the water; while later, when these wanderings cease, and they settle down to a quiet life, the dark colour forms an equally invisible covering.

W. P. PYCRAFT, F.Z.S., A.L.S.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Prairie Dogs.]