"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 multitude, 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
lustrous, 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 casement 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.
"Everybody was glad to see him, but he had to eat his breakfast all
alone nevertheless, for his cousins had been up and had theirs hours and
hours before. One of his relatives was a pretty little auburn-haired
lass of some nine or ten summers, with blue, laughing eyes, and modest
mien. She volunteered to show Harry round the farm. But Harry felt
just a little afraid nevertheless, and considerably ashamed for being
so, when he found himself in the great yard quite surrounded by hens and
ducks and gobbling geese and turkeys. I think the animals themselves
knew this, and did all they could to frighten him. The hens were
content with cackling and grumbling, evidently trying to incite the
cocks to acts of open hostility against our trembling hero. The cocks
crew loudly at him, or defiantly approached him, looking as if they
meant to imply that he owed it entirely to their generosity that his
life was spared. The turkey-cocks put themselves into all sorts of
queer shapes--tried to look like fretful porcupines, elevated the red
rag that Harry was astonished to see depending from their noses, and
made terrible noises at him. The ducks were content with standing on
tiptoe, clapping their snow-white wings, and crying, `What! what! what!'
at the top of their voices. The peahens were merely curious and
impertinent; but the geese were alarmingly intrusive. They stretched
out their necks to the longest extent, approached him thus, and gave
vent to hissings unutterable by any other creature than a goose.
"`They won't bite or anything, will they?' faltered our hero, feeling
very small indeed.
"But his little companion only laughed right merrily. Then taking
Harry's hand, she ran him off to show him more wonders--great horses
that looked to the London boy as big as elephants; enormous oxen as big
as rhinoceroses; donkeys that looked wiser than he could have believed
it possible for a donkey to look; and goats that looked simply
mischievous and nothing else. What a blessing it was for Harry that he
had such a wise little guardian and mentor as his Cousin Lizzie. She
went everywhere with him, and explained away all his doubts and
difficulties. Ay, and she chaffed him not a little either, and laughed
at all his queer mistakes; but I think she pitied him a good deal at the
same time. `Poor boy,' Lizzie used to think to herself, `he has never
been out of London before. What can he know?'
"Little Lizzie had the same kind pity on Harry's physical weakness as
she had for his mental. Her cousin couldn't climb the broom-clad hills
as she could--not at first, at all events; but after one month's stay in
this wild, free country, new life and spirit seemed to be instilled into
him. He could climb hills now fast enough; and he was never tired
wandering in the dark pine forests, or over the mountains that were now
bedecked in the glorious purple of the heather's bloom.
"Harry's uncle gave him many a bit of good advice, which went far to
dispel both his doubts and fears, and that means his ignorance; for only
the very ignorant dare to doubt what they cannot understand. `There are
more things in heaven and earth,' said his uncle one day, `than we have
dreamed of in our philosophy. What would you think of my honest dog
there if he told you the electric telegraph was an impossibility, simply
because _he_ couldn't understand it? Have faith, boy, have faith.'
"But would it be believed that this boy, this London boy, didn't know
where chickens came from? He really didn't. Very little things
sometimes form the turning-point in the history of great men, and lead
them to a better train of thought. For remember that our mighty rivers
that bear great navies to the ocean, like mighty thoughts, have very
small beginnings.
"Harry observed a hen one day in a very great blaze of excitement. Her
chickens were hatching. One after another they were popping out of the
shell, and going directly to seek for food. One little fellow, who had
just come out, was clapping his wings and stretching himself as coolly
as if he had just come by train, and was glad the journey was over.
This was all very wonderful to Harry; it led him to think; the thought
led to wisdom and faith.
"Harry took a long walk that day in his favourite pine forest, and for
the first time in his life, it struck him that every creature he saw
there had some avocation; flies, beetles, and birds, all were working.
Says Harry to himself, `I, too, will be industrious. I may yet be
something in this great world, in which I am now convinced everything is
well ordained.'
"He kept that resolve firmly, unflinchingly; he is, while I write, one
of the wealthiest merchants in London city; he is happy enough in this
world, and has something in his breast which enables him to look
beyond."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Now one other," said Ida; "I know you have lots of pretty tales in that
old portfolio."
"Well," I said, smiling, "here goes; and then you'll sleep."
------------------------------------------------------------------------