Chapter III: Preface (3)

And if it hadn't been for Dolly's Major (he's her Godfather, and she
calls him "my Major"), what we should have done I really
don't know!
He said, "What's the matter?" And Dolly said,
"Mother's birthday's the matter." And I said, "We can't think what
to devise
To give her a birthday treat that won't give her neuralgia, and will
take her by surprise.
Look here, Major! How can you give people treats who can order what
they wish for far better than you?
I wonder what they do for the Queen!--her birthday must be the hardest
of all." But he said, "Not a bit of it! They have a review:
Cocked hats and all the rest of it; and a salute, and a _feu de joie_,
and a March-Past.
That's the way we keep the Queen's Birthday; and every year the same
as the last."
So I settled at once to have a Mother's Birthday Review; and that she
should be Queen, and I should be the General in command.
I thought she couldn't come to any harm by sitting in a fur cloak and
a birthday wreath at the window, and bowing and waving
her hand.
We did not tell her what was coming, we only asked for leave to have
all the seven donkeys for an hour and a half;
(We always hire them from the same old man)--two for the girls, and
five for me and my brothers--I told him, "for me and
my Staff."
We could have managed with five, if the girls would only have been
Maids of Honour, and stayed indoors with the Queen.
Maggie would if I'd asked her; but Dolly will go her own way, and
that's into the thick of everything, to see whatever there
is to be seen.
She's only four years old, but she's ridiculously like the picture
of an ancient ancestress of ours
Who defended an old castle in Cornwall, against the French, for
hours and hours.
Her husband was away, so she was in command, and all her household
obeyed her;
She made them strip the lead off the roofs, and they did, and she
boiled it down and gave it very hot indeed to the
French invader.[5]
Maggie would have let the French in; she doesn't like me to say so,
but I know she would,--you can get anything out of Maggie
by talking.

She likes to hire a donkey, and then sham she'd rather not ride, for
fear of being too heavy; and to take Spike out for a run,
and then carry him to save him the trouble of walking.
But she's very good; she made all our cocked hats, and at the review
she and Dolly and Spike were the loyal crowd.
Dick and Tom and Harry were the troops, and I was the General, and
Mother looked quite like a Queen at the window, and bowed.
The donkeys made very good chargers on the whole, and especially mine;
Jem's was the only one that gave trouble, and neither fair means nor
foul would keep him in line.
Just when I'd dressed all their noses to a nice level (you can do
nothing with their ears), then back went Jem's brute,
And Jem caught him a whack with the flat of his sword (a thing you
never see done on the Staff), and it rather spoilt the salute;
But the spirit of the troops was excellent, and we'd a _feu de joie_
with penny pistols (Jem's donkey was the only one that shied),
and Dolly's Major says that, all things considered, he never
saw a better March-Past;
And Mother was delighted with her first Birthday Review, and she is
none the worse for it, and says she only hopes that it won't
be the last.

[Footnote 5: Dame Elizabeth Treffry (_temp._ Henry VI.) defended Place
House, Fowey, Cornwall, in the circumstances and with the
vigorous measures described. On his return her husband wisely
"Embattled all the walls of the house, and in a manner made it
a Castelle, and unto this day it is the glorie of the town building
in Faweye."--_Carew_. The beauties of Place Castle remain to
this day also.]

DOLLY.

They call me Dolly, but I'm not a doll, and I'm not a baby, though
Baby is sometimes my name;
I behave beautifully at meals, and at church, and I can put on my
own boots, and can say a good deal of the Catechism, and ride
a donkey, and play at any boys' game.
I've ridden a donkey that kicks (at least I rode him as long as I was
on), and a donkey that rolls, and an old donkey that
goes lame.
I mean to ride like a lady now, but that's because I ought, not because
I easily can;
For what with your legs and your pommels (I mean the saddle's pommels),
it would be much easier always to ride like a man.
Boys _look_ braver, but I think it's really more dangerous to ride
sideways, because of the saddle slipping round.
(I didn't cry; I played at slipping round the world, and getting to
New Zealand with my head upside down on the ground.)
The reason the saddle is slippery is not because it's smooth,
for it's rather rough; and there's a hard ridge behind,
And the horse's hair coming through the donkey's back (I mean through
his saddle) scratches you
dreadfully; but I tuck my things under me, and pretend I don't mind.
They work out again though, particularly when they are starched, and
I think frocks get shorter every time they go to the wash;
But I don't complain; if it's very uncomfortable, I make an ugly face
to myself, and say, "Bosh!"
We've all of us had a good deal of practice, so we ought to know
how to ride;
We've ridden a great deal since we came to live on the Heath, and we
rode a good deal when Father was stationed at the sea-side.
My Major taught me to ride sideways, and at first he would hold me on;
But I don't like being touched; and I don't call it riding like a lady
if you're held on by an officer, and I'd rather tumble off if
I can't stick on by myself; so I sent him away, and the nasty
saddle slipped round directly he was gone.
I only crushed my sun-bonnet, and the donkey stood quite still. (We
always call that one "the old stager.")
I wasn't frightened, except just the tiniest bit; but he says he was
dreadfully frightened. So I said, "Then you ought to be
ashamed of yourself, considering all your medals, and that
you're a Major."
He likes me very much, and I like him, and when my fifth birthday
comes, he says I'm to choose a donkey, and he'll buy it for
me, but the saddle and bridle shall be quite new;
So I've made up my mind to choose the one Brother Bill had for his
charger at Mother's Birthday Review;
And Maggie is so glad, she says her life is quite miserable with
thinking how miserable other lives are, if only we knew.
Maggie loves every creature that lives; she won't confess to black
beetles, but she can't stamp on them (I've stamped out lots
in my winter boots), and she doesn't even think a donkey
ugly when he brays;
And she says she shall buy a brush, out of her pocket-money, and brush
my donkey every day till he looks like a horse, and that it
shan't be her fault if there isn't one poor old brute beast
who lives happily to the end of his days.

JACK ASS.

The dew falls over the Heath, Brother Donkeys, and the darkness falls,
but still through the gathering night
All around us spreads the Heath Bed-straw[6] in glimmering sheets of
white.
Dragged and trampled, and plucked and wasted, it patiently spreads
and survives;
Kicked and thwacked, and prodded and over-laden, we patiently cling
to our lives.
Hee-haw! for the rest and silence of darkness that follow the labours
of light.
Hee-haw! for the hours from night to morning, that balance the hours
from morning to night.
Hee-haw! for the sweet night air that gives human beings cold in
the head.
Hee-haw! for the civilization that sends human beings to bed.
Rest, Brother Donkeys, rest, from the bit, the burden, the blow,
The dust, the flies, the restless children, the brutal roughs, the
greedy donkey-master, the greedier donkey-hirer, the
holiday-maker who knows no better, and the holiday-makers
who ought to know!
When the odorous furze-bush prickles the seeking nose, and the short
damp grass refreshes the tongue,--lend, Brother Donkeys, lend
a long and attentive ear!
Whilst I proudly bray
Of the one bright day
In our hard and chequered career.
I've dragged pots, and vegetables, and invalids, and
fish, and I've galloped with four costermongers to the races;
I've carried babies, and sea-coal, and sea-sand, and sea-weed in
panniers, and been sold to the gypsies, and been bought back
for the sea-side, and ridden (in a white saddle-cloth with
scarlet braid) by the fashionable visitors. (There was always
a certain distinction in my paces,
Though I say it who shouldn't) I've spent a summer on the Heath, and
next winter near Covent Garden, and moved the following year
to the foot of a mountain, to take people up to the top to
show them the view.
But how little we know what's before us! And how little I guessed I
should ever be chief charger at a Queen's Birthday Review!
Did I triumph alone? No, Brother Donkeys, no! You also took your place
with the defenders of the nation;
Subordinate positions to my own, but meritoriously filled, though a
little more style would have well become so great an occasion.
That malevolent old Moke--may his next thistle choke him!--disgraced us
all with his jibbing--the ill-tempered old ass!
Young Neddy is shaggy and shy, but not amiss, if he'd held his ears up,
and not kept his eyes on the grass.
Nothing is more je-june (I may say vulgar) than to seem anxious to eat
when the crisis calls for public spirit, enthusiasm, and an
elevated tone;
And I wish, Brother Donkeys, I wish that all had felt as I felt, the
responsibility of a March-Past the Throne!
Respect and self-respect delicately blended; one ear up, and the other
lowered to salute, as I passed the window from which we
were seen
(Unless I grievously misunderstood the young General this morning,) by
no less a personage than her Most Gracious Majesty THE QUEEN.
Sleep, Brother Donkeys, sleep! But I fancy you're sleeping already,
for you make no reply;
Not a quiver of your ears, not a sign from your motionless drooping
noses, dark against the dusky night sky.
As black and immovable as the silent fir-trees you solemnly
slumber beneath,
Whilst I wakefully meditate on a glorious past, and painfully ponder
the future, as the dews fall over the Heath.

[Footnote 6: Heath bed-straw (_Galium Saxatile_). This white-flowered
bed-straw grows profusely on Hampstead Heath.]

THE PROMISE.

CHILD.

Five blue eggs hatching,
With bright eyes watching,
Little brown mother, you sit on your nest.

BIRD.

Oh! pass me blindly,
Oh! spare me kindly,
Pity my terror, and leave me to rest.

CHORUS OF CHILDREN.

Hush! hush! hush!
'Tis a poor mother thrush.
When the blue eggs hatch, the brown birds will sing--
This is a promise made in the Spring.

CHILD.

Five speckled thrushes
In leafy bushes
Singing sweet songs to the hot Summer sky.
In and out twitting,
Here and there flitting,
Happy is life as the long days go by.

CHORUS.

Hush! hush! hush!
'Tis the song of the thrush:
Hatched are the blue eggs; the brown birds do sing--
Keeping the promise made in the Spring.

Published in _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, July 1866, with music by
Alexander Ewing.

CONVALESCENCE.

Hold my hand, little Sister, and nurse my head, whilst I try to
remember the word,
What was it?--that the doctor says is now fairly established both
in me and my bird.
C-O-N-_con_, _with a con_, S-T-A-N-_stan_, _with a stan_--No! That's
Constantinople, that is
The capital of the country where rhubarb-and-magnesia comes from, and
I wish they would keep it in that country, and not send
it to this.
C-O-N-_con_--how my head swims! Now I've got it!
C-O-N-V-A-L-E-S-C-E-N-C-E.
_Convalescence!_ And that's what the doctor says is now fairly
established both in my blackbird and me.
He says it means that you are better, and that you'll be well
by and by.
And so the Sea-captain says, and he says we ought to be friends,
because we're both convalescents--at least we're all three
convalescents, my blackbird, and the Captain and I.
He's a sea-captain, not a land-captain, but, all the same, he was
in the war,
And he fought,--for I asked him,--and he's been ill ever since, and
that's why he's not afloat, but ashore;
And why somebody else has got his ship; and she behaved so beautifully
in the battle, and he loves her quite as much as his wife,
and rather better than the rest of his relations, for I asked
him; and now he's afraid she will never belong to him
any more.
I like him. I've seen him three times out walking with two sticks, when
I was driving in the bath-chair, but I never talked to him
till to-day.
He'd only one stick and a telescope, and he let me look through it at
the big ship that was coming round the corner into the bay.
He was very kind, and let me ask questions. I said, "Are you a
sea-captain?" and he said, "Yes." And I said, "How funny it
is about land things and sea things!
There are captains and sea-captains, and weeds and sea-weeds, and
serpents and sea-serpents. Did you ever meet one, and is it
really like the dragons on our very old best blue tea-things?"
But he never did. So I asked him, "Have you got convalescence? Does
your doctor say it is fairly established? Do your eyes ache
if you try to read, and your neck if you draw, and your back
if you sit up, and your head if you talk?
Don't you get tired of doing nothing, and worse tired still if you do
anything; and does everything wobble about when you walk?
Wouldn't you rather go back to bed? I think I would. Don't you wish
you were well? Wouldn't you rather be ill than only better?
I do hate convalescence, don't you?"
Then I stopped asking, and he shut up his telescope, and sat down on
the shingle, and said, "When you come to my age, little chap,
you won't think 'What is it I'd rather have?' but, 'What is
it I've got to do?'
'What have I got to do or to bear; and how can I do it or bear
it best?'
That's the only safe point to make for, my lad. Make for it, and
leave the rest!"
I said, "But _wouldn't_ you rather be in battles than in bed, with
your head aching as if it would split?"
And he said, "Of course I would; so would most men. But, my little
convalescent, that's not it.
What would _you_ think of a man who was ordered into battle, and went
grumbling and wishing he were in bed?"
"What should I think of the fellow? Why, I should know he was a
coward," I said.
"And if he were confined to bed," said the Sea-captain, "and lay
grumbling and wishing he were in battle, I should give
him no better a name;
For the courage that dares, and the courage that bears, are really
one and the same."
Hold my hand, little Sister, and nurse my head, for I'm thinking, and
I very much fear
You've had no good of being well since I was ill; I've led you such a
life; but indeed I am obliged to you, dear!
Is it true that Nurse has got something the matter with her legs, and
that Mary has gone home because she's worn out with nursing,
And won't be fit to work for months? (will _she_ be convalescent,
because it was such hard work waiting on _me_?) and did Cook
say, "So much grumbling and complaining is nigh as big a sin
as swearing and cursing"?
I wish I hadn't been so cross with poor Mary, and I wish I hadn't given
so much trouble about my medicine and my food.
I didn't think about her. I only thought what a bother it was. I wish
I hadn't thought so much about being miserable, that I never
thought of trying to be good.
I believe the Sea-captain is right, and I shall tell him so to-morrow,
when he comes here to tea;
He's going to look at my blackbird's leg, and if it is really set, he
wants me to let it go free.
He says captivity is worse than convalescence, and so I should think
it must be.
Are you tired, little Sister? You feel shaky. Don't beg my pardon; I
beg yours. I've not let you go out of my sight for weeks.
Get your things on, and have a gallop on Jack.
Ride round this way and let me see you. I won't say a word about
wishing I was going too; and if my head gets bad whilst
you're away, I will bear it my very best till you come back.
Tell me one thing before you start. If I learn to be patient, shall I
learn to be brave, do you think? The Sea-captain says so.
He says, "Self-command is the making of a man," and he's a finely-made
man himself, so he ought to know.
Perhaps, if I try hard at Convalescence now, I may become a brave
sea-captain hereafter, and take my beautiful ship into battle,
and bring her out again with flying colours and fame,
If the courage that dares, and the courage that bears, _are_ really
one and the same.

THE ADVENTURES OF AN ELF.

A PICTURE POEM FOR THE LITTLE ONES.

_By Fedor Flinzer. Freely translated by J.H. Ewing._