Chapter III: Front Matter (3)

"Well, it's the most extraordinary thing I ever heard of," the Gardener's wife said, supposing she was talking to her husband all the time; but soon she held her tongue, for she found here and there among the clothes all sorts of queer marks--marks of fingers, and toes, and heels, not in mud at all, but in coal-dust, as black as black could be.

Now, as the place where the big coal had tumbled out of the barrow was fully fifty yards from the orchard, and, as the coal could not come to the clothes, and the clothes could not go without hands, the only conclusion she could arrive at was--well, no particular conclusion at all!

It was too late that night to begin washing again; besides, she was extremely tired, and her husband woke up rather worse than usual, so she just bundled the clothes up anyhow in a corner, put the kitchen to rights, and went mournfully to bed.

Next morning she got up long before it was light, washed her clothes through all over again, and, it being impossible to dry them by the fire, went out with them once more, and began spreading them out in their usual corner, in a hopeless and melancholy manner. While she was at it, the little folks came trooping around her. She didn't scold them this time, she was too low-spirited.

"No! my old man isn't any better, and I don't fancy he ever will be," said she, in answer to their questions. "And every thing's going wrong with us--just listen!" And she told the trick which had been played her about the clothes.

The little people tried not to laugh, but it was so funny; and even now, the minute she had done hanging them out, there was something so droll in the way the clothes blew about, without any wind; the shirts hanging with their necks downward, as if there was a man inside them; and the drawers standing stiffly astride on the gooseberry-bushes, for all the world as if they held a pair of legs still. As for Gardener's night-caps--long, white cotton, with a tassel at the top--they were alarming to look at; just like a head stuck on the top of a pole.

The whole thing was so peculiar, and the old woman so comical in her despair, that the children, after trying hard to keep it in, at last broke into shouts of laughter. She turned furiously upon them.

"It was you who did it!"

"No, indeed it wasn't!" said they, jumping farther to escape her blows. For she had got one of her clothes-props, and was laying about her in the most reckless manner. However, she hurt nobody, and then she suddenly burst out, not laughing, but crying.

"It's a cruel thing, whoever has done it, to play such tricks on a poor old body like me, with a sick husband that she works hard for, and not a child to help her. But I don't care. I'll wash my clothes again, if it's twenty times over, and I'll hang them out again in the very place, just to make you all ashamed of yourselves."

Perhaps the little people were ashamed of themselves, though they really had not done the mischief. But they knew quite well who had done it, and more than once they were about to tell; only they were afraid, if they did so, they should vex the Brownie so much that he would never come and play with them any more.

So they looked at one another without speaking, and when the Gardener's wife had emptied her basket and dried her eyes, they said to her, very kindly:

"Perhaps no harm may come to your clothes this time. We'll sit and watch them till they are dry."

"Just as you like; I don't care. Them that hides can find, and them that plays tricks knows how to stop 'em."

It was not a civil speech, but then things were hard for the poor old woman. She had been awake nearly all night, and up washing at daybreak; her eyes were red with crying, and her steps weary and slow. The little children felt quite sorry for her, and, instead of going to play, sat watching the clothes as patiently as possible.

Nothing came near them. Sometimes, as before, the things seemed to dance about without hands, and turn into odd shapes, as if there were people inside them; but not a creature was seen and not a sound was heard. And though there was neither wind nor sun, very soon all the linen was perfectly dry.

"Fetch one of mother's baskets, and we'll fold it up as tidily as possible--that is, the girls can do it, it's their business--and we boys will carry it safe to Gardener's cottage."

So said they, not liking to say that they could not trust it out of their sight for fear of Brownie, whom, indeed, they were expecting to see peer round from every bush. They began to have a secret fear that he was rather a naughty Brownie; but then, as the eldest little girl whispered, "He was only a Brownie, and knew no better." Now they were growing quite big children, who would be men and women some time; when they hoped they would never do any thing wrong. (Their parents hoped the same, but doubted it.)

In a serious and careful manner they folded up the clothes, and laid them one by one in the basket without any mischief, until, just as the two biggest boys were lifting their burden to carry it away, they felt something tugging at it from underneath.

"Halloo! Where are you taking all this rubbish? Better give it to me."

"No, if you please," said they, very civilly, not to offend the little brown man. "We'll not trouble you, thanks! We'd rather do it ourselves; for poor Gardener is very ill, and his wife is very miserable, and we are extremely sorry for them both."

"Extremely sorry!" cried Brownie, throwing up his cap in the air, and tumbling head over heels in an excited manner. "What in the world does extremely sorry mean?"

The children could not explain, especially to a Brownie; but they thought they understood--anyhow, they felt it. And they looked so sorrowful that the Brownie could not tell what to make of it.

He could not be said to be sorry, since, being a Brownie, and not a human being, knowing right from wrong, he never tried particularly to do right, and had no idea that he was doing wrong. But he seemed to have an idea that he was troubling the children, and he never liked to see them look unhappy.

So he turned head over heels six times running, and then came back again.

"The silly old woman! I washed her clothes for her last night in a way she didn't expect. I hadn't any soap, so I used a little mud and coal-dust, and very pretty they looked. Ha, ha, ha! Shall I wash them over again to-night?"

"Oh, no, please don't!" implored the children.

"Shall I starch and iron them? I'll do it beautifully. One--two--three, five--six--seven, Abracadabra, tum--tum--ti!" shouted he, jabbering all sorts of nonsense, as it seemed to the children, and playing such antics that they stood and stared in the utmost amazement, and quite forgot the clothes. When they looked round again, the basket was gone.

"Seek till you find, seek till you find,
Under the biggest gooseberry-bush, exactly to your mind."

They heard him singing this remarkable rhyme, long after they had lost sight of him. And then they all set about searching; but it was a long while before they found, and still longer before they could decide, which was the biggest gooseberry-bush, each child having his or her opinion--sometimes a very strong one--on the matter. At last they agreed to settle it by pulling half-a-dozen little sticks, to see which stick was the longest, and the child that held it was to decide the gooseberry-bush.

This done, underneath the branches what should they find but the identical basket of clothes! only, instead of being roughly dried, they were all starched and ironed in the most beautiful manner. As for the shirts, they really were a picture to behold, and the stockings were all folded up, and even darned in one or two places, as neatly as possible. And strange to tell, there was not a single black mark of feet or fingers on any one of them.

"Kind little Brownie! clever little Brownie!" cried the children in chorus, and thought this was the most astonishing trick he had ever played.

What the Gardener's wife said about it, whether they told her any thing, or allowed her to suppose that the clothes had been done in their own laundry instead of the Brownie's (wherever that establishment might be), is more than I can tell. Of one thing only I am certain--that the little people said nothing but what was true. Also, that the very minute they got home they told their mother every thing.

But for a long time after that they were a good deal troubled. Gardener got better, and went hobbling about the place again, to his own and every body's great content, and his wife was less sharp-tongued and complaining than usual--indeed, she had nothing to complain of. All the family were very flourishing, except the little Brownie.

Often there was heard a curious sound all over the house; it might have been rats squeaking behind the wainscot--the elders said it was--but the children were sure it was a sort of weeping and wailing.

"They've stolen my coal,
And I haven't a hole
To hide in;
Not even a house
One could ask a mouse
To bide in."

A most forlorn tune it was, ending in a dreary minor key, and it lasted for months and months--at least the children said it did. And they were growing quite dull for want of a playfellow, when, by the greatest good luck in the world, there came to the house not only a new lot of kittens, but a new baby. And the new baby was everybody's pet, including the Brownie's.

From that time, though he was not often seen, he was continually heard up and down the staircase, where he was frequently mistaken for Tiny or the cat, and sent sharply down again, which was wasting a great deal of wholesome anger upon Mr. Nobody. Or he lurked in odd corners of the nursery, whither the baby was seen crawling eagerly after nothing in particular, or sitting laughing with all her might at something--probably her own toes.

But, as Brownie was never seen, he was never suspected. And since he did no mischief--neither pinched the baby nor broke the toys, left no soap in the bath and no footmarks about the room--but was always a well-conducted Brownie in every way, he was allowed to inhabit the nursery (or supposed to do so, since, as nobody saw him, nobody could prevent him), until the children were grown up into men and women.

After that he retired into his coal-cellar, and, for all I know, he may live there still, and have gone through hundreds of adventures since; but as I never heard them, I can't tell them. Only I think, if I could be a little child again, I should exceedingly like a Brownie to play with me. Should not you?

By Miss Mulock]

THE BLACKBIRD AND THE ROOKS.

A SLENDER young Blackbird built in a thorn-tree
A spruce little fellow as ever could be;
His bill was so yellow, his feathers so black,
So long was his tail, and so glossy his back,
That good Mrs. B., who sat hatching her eggs,
And only just left them to stretch her poor legs,
And pick for a minute the worm she preferred,
Thought there never was seen such a beautiful bird.

And such a kind husband! how early and late
He would sit at the top of the old garden gate,
And sing, just as merry as if it were June,
Being ne'er out of patience, or temper, or tune.
"So unlike those Rooks, dear; from morning till night
They seem to do nothing but quarrel and fight,
And wrangle and jangle, and plunder--while we
Sit, honest and safe, in our pretty thorn-tree."

Just while she was speaking, a lively young Rook
Alit with a flap that the thorn-bush quite shook,
And seizing a stick from the nest--"Come, I say,
That will just suit me, neighbor"--flew with it away
The lady loud twittered--her husband soon heard:
Though peaceful, he was not a cowardly bird;
And with arguments angry enough to o'erwhelm
A whole Rookery--flew to the top of the elm.

"How dare you, you--" (thief he was going to say;
But a civiller sentiment came in the way:
For he knew 'tis no good, and it anyhow shames
A gentleman, calling strange gentlemen names:)
"Pray what is your motive, Sir Rook, for such tricks,
As building your mansion with other folks' sticks?
I request you'll restore them, in justice and law."
At which the whole colony set up a--caw!

But Blackbird, not silenced, then spoke out again;
"I've built my small nest with much labor and pain.
I'm a poor singing gentleman, Sirs, it is true,
Though cockneys do often mistake me for you;
But I keep Mrs. Blackbird, and four little eggs,
And neither e'er pilfers, or borrows, or begs.
Now have I not right on my side, do you see?"
But they flew at and pecked him all down the elm-tree.

Ah! wickedness prospers sometimes, I much fear;
And virtue's not always victorious, that's clear:
At least, not at first: for it must be confessed
Poor Blackbird lost many a stick from his nest;
And his unkind grand neighbors with scoffing caw-caws,
In his voice and his character found many flaws,
And jeered him and mocked him; but when they'd all done,
He flew to his tree and sang cheerily on.

At length May arrived with her garlands of leaves;
The swallows were building beneath the farm-eaves,
Wrens, linnets, and sparrows, on every hedge-side,
Were bringing their families out with great pride;
While far above all, on the tallest tree-top,
With a flutter and clamor that never did stop,
The haughty old Rooks held their heads up so high,
And dreamed not of trouble--until it drew nigh!

One morning at seven, as he came with delight
To his wife's pretty parlor of may-blossoms white,
Having fed all his family ere rise of sun,--
Mr. Blackbird perceived--a big man with a gun;
Who also perceived him: "See, Charlie, among
That may, sits the Blackbird we've heard for so long:
Most likely his nest's there--how frightened he looks!
Nay, Blackie, we're not come for you, but the Rooks."

I don't say 'twas cruel--I can't say 'twas kind--
On the subject I haven't quite made up my mind:
But those guns went pop-popping all morning, alas!
And young Rooks kept dropping among the long grass,
Till good Mr. Blackbird, who watched the whole thing,
For pity could scarcely a single note sing,
And in the May sunset he hardly could bear
To hear the returning Rooks' caw of despair.

"O, dear Mrs. Blackbird," at last warbled he,
"How happy we are in our humble thorn-tree;
How gaily we live, living honest and poor,
How sweet are the may-blossoms over our door."
"And then our dear children," the mother replied,
And she nested them close to her warm feathered side,
And with a soft twitter of drowsy content,
In the quiet May moonlight to sleep they all went.

THE SHAKING OF THE PEAR-TREE

OF all days I remember,
In summers passed away,
Was "the shaking of the pear-tree,"
In grandma's orchard gay.

A large old-fashioned orchard,
With long grass under foot,
And blackberry-brambles crawling
In many a tangled shoot.

From cherry time, till damsons
Dropped from the branches sere,
That wonderful old orchard
Was full of fruit all year;

We pick'd it up in baskets,
Or pluck'd it from the wall;
But the shaking of the pear-tree
Was the grandest treat of all.

Long, long the days we counted
Until that day drew nigh;
Then, how we watched the sun set,
And criticised the sky!

If rain--"'Twill clear at midnight;"
If dawn broke chill and gray,
"O many a cloudy morning
Turns out a lovely day."

So off we started gaily,
Heedless of jolt or jar;
Through town and lane, and hamlet,
In old Llewellyn's car.

He's dead and gone--Llewellyn,
These twenty years, I doubt:
If I put him in this poem,
He'll never find it out,

The patient, kind Llewellyn--
Whose broad face smiled all o'er,
As he lifted out us children
At grandma's very door.

And there stood Grandma's Betty,
With cheeks like apples red;
And Dash, the spaniel, waddled
Out of his cosy bed.

With silky ears down dropping,
And coat of chestnut pale;
He was so fat and lazy
He scarce could wag his tail.

Poor Dash is dead, and buried
Under the lilac-tree;
And Betty's old,--as, children,
We all may one day be.

I hope no child will vex us,
As we vexed Betty then,
With winding up the draw-well,
Or hunting the old hen.

And teasing, teasing, teasing,
Till afternoon wore round,
And shaken pears came tumbling
In showers upon the ground.

O how we jumped and shouted!
O how we plunged amid
The long grass, where the treasures,
Dropped down and deftly hid;

Long, slender-shaped, red-russet,
Or yellow just like gold;
Ah! never pears have tasted
Like those sweet pears of old!

We ate--I'd best not mention
How many: paused to fill
Big basket after basket;
Working with right good-will;

Then hunted round the orchard
For half-ripe plums--in vain;
So, back unto the pear-tree,
To eat, and eat again.

I'm not on my confession,
And therefore need not say
How tired, and cross, and sleepy,
Some were ere close of day;

For pleasure has its ending,
And eke its troubles too;
Which you'll find out, my children,
As well as we could do.

But yet this very minute,
I seem to see it all--
The pear-tree's empty branches
The gray of evening-fall;

The children's homeward silence,
The furnace fires that glowed,
Each mile or so, out streaming
Across the lonely road;

And high, high set in heaven,
One large bright, beauteous star,
That shone between the curtains
Of old Llewellyn's car.

THE WONDERFUL APPLE-TREE.[A]

COME here, my dear boys, and I'll tell you a fable,
Which you may believe as much as you're able;
It isn't all true, nor all false, I'll be bound--
Of the tree that bears apples all the year round.

There was a Dean Tucker of Gloster city,
Who may have been wise, or worthy, or witty;
But I know nothing of him, the more's the pity,
Save that he was Dean Tucker of Gloster city.

And walking one day with a musing air
In his Deanery garden, close by where
The great cathedral's west window's seen,--
"I'll plant an apple," said Tucker the Dean.

The apple was planted, the apple grew,
A stout young tree, full of leaves not few;
The apple was grafted, the apple bore
Of goodly apples, one, two, three, four.

The old Dean walked in his garden fair,
"I'm glad I planted that young tree there,
Though it was but a shoot, or some old tree's sucker;
I'll taste it to-morrow," said good Dean Tucker.

But lo, in the night when (they say) trees talk,
And some of the liveliest get up and walk,
With fairies abroad for watch and warden--
There was such a commotion in the Dean's garden!

"I will not be gathered," the apple-tree said,
"Was it for this I blossomed so red?
Hung out my fruit all the summer days,
Got so much sunshine, and pleasure and praise?"

"Ah!" interrupted a solemn red plum,
"This is the end to which all of us come;
Last month I was laden with hundreds--but now"--
And he sighed the last little plum off from his bough.

"Nay, friend, take it easy," the pear-tree replied
(A lady-like person against the wall-side).
"Man guards, nurtures, trains us from top down to root:
I think 'tis but fair we should give him our fruit."

"No, I'll not be gathered," the apple resumed,
And shook his young branches, and fluttered and fumed;
"And I'll not drop neither, as some of you drop,
Over-ripe: I'm determined to keep my whole crop.

"And I with"--O'er his branches just then _something_ flew;
It seemed like moth, large and grayish of hue.
But it was a Fairy. Her voice soft did sound,
"Be the tree that bears apples all the year round."

* * * * *

The Dean to his apple-tree, came, full of hope,
But tough was the fruit-stalk as double-twist rope,
And when he had cut it with patience and pain,
He bit just one mouthful--and never again.

"An apple so tasteless, so juiceless, so hard,
Is, sure, good for nought but to bowl in the yard;
The choir-boys may have it." But choir-boys soon found
It was worthless--the tree that bore all the year round.

And Gloster lads climbing the Deanery wall
Were punished, as well might all young thieves appal,
For, clutching the booty for which they did sin,
They bit at the apples--and left their teeth in!

And thus all the year from October till May,
From May till October, the apples shone gay;
But 'twas just outside glitter, for no hand was found
To pluck at the fruit which hung all the year round.

And so till they rotted, those queer apples hung,
The bare boughs and blossoms and ripe fruit among
And in Gloster city it still may be found--
The tree that bears apples all the year round.

FOOTNOTE:

[A] This tree, known among gardeners by the name of "Winter-hanger" or "Forbidden Fruit," was planted by Dean Tucker in 1760. It, or an off shoot from it, still exists in the city of Gloucester.

THE JEALOUS BOY

WHAT, my little foolish Ned,
Think you mother's eyes are blind,
That her heart has grown unkind,
And she will not turn her head,
Cannot see, for all her joy,
Her poor jealous little boy?

What though sister be the pet--
Laughs, and leaps, and clings, and loves,
With her eyes as soft as dove's--
Why should yours with tears be wet?
Why such angry tears let fall?
Mother's heart has room for all.

Mother's heart is very wide,
And its doors all open stand:
Lightest touch of tiniest hand
She will never put aside.
Why her happiness destroy,
Foolish, naughty, jealous boy?

Come within the circle bright,
Where we laugh, and dance, and sing,
Full of love to everything;
As God loves us, day and night,
And _forgives_ us. Come--with joy
Mother too forgives her boy.

THE STORY OF THE BIRKENHEAD

TOLD TO TWO CHILDREN

AND so you want a fairy tale,
My little maidens twain?
Well, sit beside the waterfall,
Noisy with last night's rain;

On couch of moss, with elfin spears
Bristling, all fierce to see,
When from the yet brown moor down drops
The lonely April bee.

All the wide valley blushes green,
While, in far depths below,
Wharfe flashes out a great bright eye,
Then hides his shining flow;--

Wharfe, busy, restless, rapid Wharfe,
The glory of our dale;
O I could of the River Wharfe
Tell such a fairy tale!

"The Boy of Egremond," you cry,--
"And all the 'bootless bene:'
We know that poem, every word,
And we the Strid have seen."

No, clever damsels: though the tale
Seems still to bear a part,
In every lave of Wharfe's bright wave,
The broken mother's heart--

Little you know of broken hearts,
My Kitty, blithe and wise,
Grave Mary, with the woman soul
Dawning through childish eyes.

And long, long distant may God keep
The day when each shall know
The entrance to His kingdom through
His baptism of woe!

But yet 'tis good to hear of grief
Which He permits to be;
Even as in our green inland home
We talk of wrecks at sea.

So on this lovely day, when spring
Wakes soft o'er moor and dale,
I'll tell--not quite your wish--but yet
A noble "fairy" tale.

* * * * *

'Twas six o'clock in the morning,
The sea like crystal lay,
When the good troop-ship Birkenhead
Set sail from Simon's Bay.

The Cape of Good Hope on her right
Gloomed at her through the noon:
Brief tropic twilight fled, and night
Fell suddenly and soon.

At eight o'clock in the evening
Dim grew the pleasant land;
O'er smoothest seas the southern heaven
Its starry arch out-spanned.

The soldiers on the bulwarks leaned,
Smoked, chatted; and below
The soldiers' wives sang babes to sleep,
While on the ship sailed slow.

Six hundred and thirty souls held she,
Good, bad, old, young, rich, poor;
Six hundred and thirty living souls--
God knew them all.--Secure

He counted them in His right hand,
That held the hungering seas;
And to four hundred came a voice--
"The Master hath need of these."

* * * * *

On, onward, still the vessel went
Till, with a sudden shock,
Like one that's clutched by unseen Death,
She struck upon a rock.

She filled. Not hours, not minutes left;
Each second a life's gone:
Drowned in their berths, washed overboard,
Lost, swimming, one by one;

Till, o'er this chaos of despair
Rose, like celestial breath,
The law of order, discipline,
Obedience unto death.

The soldiers mustered upon deck,
As mute as on parade;
"Women and children to the boats!"
And not a man gainsayed.

Without a murmur or a moan
They stood, formed rank and file,
Between the dreadful crystal seas
And the sky's dreadful smile.

In face of death they did their work
As they in life would do,
Embarking at a quiet quay--
A quiet, silent crew.

"Now each man for himself. To the boats!"
Arose a passing cry.
The soldier-captain answered, "Swamp
The women and babes?--No, die!"

And so they died. Each in his place,
Obedient to command,
They went down with the sinking ship,
Went down in sight of land.

The great sea oped her mouth, and closed
O'er them. Awhile they trod
The valley of the shadow of death,
And then were safe with God.

* * * * *

My little girlies--What! your tears
Are dropping on the grass,
Over my more than "fairy" tale,
A tale that "really was!"

Nay, dry them. If we could but see
The joy in angels' eyes
O'er good lives, or heroic deaths
Of pure self-sacrifice,--

We should not weep o'er these that sleep--
Their short, sharp struggle o'er--
Under the rolling waves that break
Upon the Afric shore.

God works not as man works, nor sees
As man sees: though we mark
Ofttimes the moving of His hands
Beneath the eternal Dark.

But yet we know that all is well
That He, who loved all these,
Loves children laughing on the moor,
Birds singing in the trees;

That He who made both life and death,
He knoweth which is best:
We live to Him, we die to Him,
And leave Him all the rest.

BIRDS IN THE SNOW

CHILD