Young Harry Milvaine stood beside the water-tank, and the water-tank
itself stood just outside the back kitchen door. He was hardly high
enough, however, to look right over it and down into it, though it was
full to the brim--overflowing in fact, and the water still pouring in
from the spout that led from the house-top. But Harry was of an
inventive turn of mind, young though he was, so he went and fetched a
stable bucket, and very heavy he thought it; but when he turned this
upside down and mounted on the bottom, he was possessed of a coign of
vantage which was all that could be desired.
Harry had mastered the situation.
He now watched with intense interest the bright clear bubbles that were
floating about on the surface. Bright clear bubbles they were and large
as well, and in them was a miniature reflection of all the surroundings,
the Portuguese laurel trees, the Austrian pines, the vases on the stone
pillars of the gate, with their trailing drapery of blood-red
nasturtiums, the rose-clad gable of the stable, and last but not least
his own wondering face itself. And a queer little face it was, no
saying what it might turn like in after life. Neither fat nor lean was
it, certainly not chubby, regular in features, and somewhat pale. But
it was Harry's eyes that people admired; that is, whenever Harry stood
long enough still to permit of admiration, but he was a restless child.
His eyes then were very dark and almost round, and there was a depth of
expression in them which sometimes made him look positively old.
Yes, those beautiful bubbles were mirrors, and looking into them was
just like peeping through a looking-glass into fairyland. Harry clapped
his tiny hands and crowed with delight. They went sailing about, here
and there all over the surface; then a happy thought struck Harry and he
called them his ships. The vat was the deep blue sea, and the bubbles
were ships. Ships of war, mind you, and Harry was a king, and there
were enemy's ships there also. Every now and then two or even three of
these bubble-ships would meet and join; then of course there would be a
desperate fight going on, and presently one would disappear, and that
meant victory for the other. Sometimes one of the bubble-ships sailing
all by itself would suddenly burst, and that meant a vessel gone down,
perhaps with all hands; for Harry had heard his father speak of such
things.
On the whole it was altogether as good as a play or a pantomime.
It was raining--yes, it was pouring, and Harry was wet to the skin, and
had been so for an hour or more. But he did not mind that a bit. In
fact, I am not sure that he was even conscious of it; or if conscious of
it, that he didn't prefer it. At any time, when a heavy shower came on,
Harry loved to get out in it, and run about in it, and hold up his palms
to catch the drops, and his face to feel them patter on it, only they
fell on his eyes sometimes and made him wink.
Well, but one might get tired even of a pantomime after a while, so by
and by Harry left the vat, and left his ships to shift for themselves.
"I won't be a king any more," he said to himself. "I'll go and be a
forester. Good-bye, ships," he cried, "I'm off for a run. By and by
I'll come back again and see you--if you're good."
Eily, his long-haired Collie dog, who had been sitting wistfully
watching her young master all the time that the naval warfare was going
on, was quite as wet as he; and looked the picture of misery and
forlornness; but when Harry proposed a romp and a run, she forgot her
misery. First she shook pints of water out of her massive coat, then
she jumped and capered for joy in the most ridiculous manner ever seen,
making leaps right round and round like a teetotum and pretending to
catch her tail.
The rain rained on, but away went the pair of them, running at full
speed as if their very lives depended on it.
Down the lawn and through the shrubbery, and out at the gate, which they
did not stop to shut, and across a road, and through a long field, and
past the Old Monk oak, past the great mill-dam, past the mill itself,
and they never checked their headlong speed till they were right into
the forest.
Not a forest of oak but of pine-trees, with ne'er a bit of undergrowth,
for Harry's home was in Scottish wilds. No, never a bit of undergrowth
was there, and hardly a green thing under the tall, bare tree-stems,
that looked for all the world like pillars in some vasty cave. And all
the ground was bedded deep with the withered pine-needles that had
fallen the year before. Among these grew great unsightly toad-stools,
though some were pretty enough--bright crimson with white spots.
Now Harry had a pet toad that he kept in a little box deep hidden among
the pine-needles at the foot of a tree. He went straight for him now,
and pulled him out and placed him on one of the very biggest and
flattest of the toad-stools. And there the toad squatted, and Eily
barked at him and Harry laughed at him, but the great toad never moved a
muscle, but simply sat and stared. He did not seem half awake. So
Harry soon grew tired of him; he was not fast enough for Harry, who
therefore put him back again in his box, covered him up with the
withered needles, and told him to go to sleep; then away went he and
Eily shouting and barking till the woods rang again. Soon they came to
a brawling stream. It was fuller than usual, and Harry got a great
piece of pine bark, and launched it for a ship, and ran alongside of it,
on and on and on till the streamlet joined the river itself, and Harry's
ship was floated away far beyond his reach.
The river was greatly swollen and turbulent with the rains, and its
waters were quite yellow. Trees were floating down and even
corn-sheaves--for the season was autumn--and now and then stooks of
golden grain. Harry paused and looked upon the great river with awe,
not unmingled with admiration.
"Wouldn't I like to be a sailor, just," he said, "that is," he added,
turning round and addressing Eily, "a real sailor you know, Eily; and go
and see all the pretty countries that nursie reads to me about when I'm
naughty and won't sleep."
Eily wagged her tail, as much as to say, "It would be the finest thing
in the world." For Eily always coincided with everything her little
master proposed or said.
"And you could go with me, Eily, of course."
"Yes," said Eily, talking with her tail.
"And there would be no more nasty copies to write, nor sums to do."
"No," said Eily.
"And, oh! such a lot of fruit and nuts, Eily; but, come on, I want to
make faces at the bull."
"Come on, then," said Eily, speaking with her eyes this time. "Come on,
I'm ready. We'll make faces at the bull."
So off they ran once more.
The bull was a splendid Highland specimen, with a rough buff jacket,
hair all over his face and eyes, and horns as long as both your arms
outstretched. Just such an animal as Rosa Bonheur, that queen of
artists, delights to paint.
He dwelt in a field all by himself because he was so fierce that no
other creature or human being dare go near him except a certain sturdy
cowherd, who had known Jock, as the bull was called, since he was a
calf.
Jock was quite away at the other end of the field--which was well
walled--when Harry and his canine companion arrived at the five-barred
gate.
"I know how to fetch him down, Eily," said Harry. Then he called out as
loud as he could: "Towsie Jock! Towsie Jock! Towsie! Towsie!
Towsie!"
The great bull lifted his head and sniffed the air.
"Towsie Jock! Towsie! Towsie! Towsie!"
With a roar that would have frightened many a child, he shook his great
head, then came on towards the gate, growling all the while in a most
alarming way.
"Towsie Jock! Towsie! Towsie?" cried the boy.
Jock was at the gate now.
His breath blew hot and thick from his nostrils, his red eyes seemed to
flash fire.
"Towsie Jock! Towsie! Towsie!"
The bull was mad. He tore up the earth with his fore-feet, and the
grass with his teeth.
"Towsie! Tow--"
Before Harry could finish the word, greatly to his horror, the bull
threw off the top bar with one of his horns, and in three seconds more
had leapt clean over.
But Harry was too quick for him, and what followed spoke well for the
presence of mind of our young hero.
To have attempted to run straight away from the bull would have meant a
speedy and terrible death. He would have been torn limb from limb. But
no sooner did the bar rattle down, than both Harry and Eily sprang to
the stone fence and jumped over into the field, just as the bull jumped
out of it.
Jock was considerably nonplussed at not finding his tormentor where he
had expected to.
"Towsie! Towsie!" cried Harry, and the bull leapt back into the field,
and Harry and Eily scrambled out of it. This game was kept up for some
time, a sort of wild hide-and-seek, much to Harry's delight; but each
time he leapt the wall he edged farther and farther from the gate.
The bull got quieter now and kept inside the field, and pretended to
browse, though I do not think he swallowed much. He followed along the
stone fence all the same, but Harry knew he could not leap it. In the
adjoining field, which belonged to Harry's father, great turnips grew,
and Harry went and pulled two of the very biggest, and threw over the
wall to the bull.
"Poor Jock!" said the boy, "I didn't mean to vex you."
Jock eyed him a moment as if he did not know what to make of it all,
then began quietly to munch the turnips.
And Harry stole back and put up the top bar of the gate.
Meanwhile the rain continued unremittingly, but being wet to the skin,
Harry could not well be wetter, and that is how he consoled himself.
The afternoon was already far spent, by and by it would be dark, so he
prepared to hurry home now.
He knew his way through the forest, but there were many attractions--a
wild bee-hive for instance in a bank. He must stop and beat the ground
above it, then bend his ear down to hear the bees buzz, till at last one
was sent out to see what the matter was and whether or not the end of
the world had come.
A hole where he knew a weasel lived; he would have liked to have seen
it, only it would not come out. Rabbit's holes, that he crept towards
on hands and knees, and laughed to see the bunnies scurry away. A deep
water-pit where queer old-fashioned water-rats (voles) lived, some of
whom came out to look at him and squeezed their eyes to clear their
sight. And so on and so forth. It was quite gloaming before he got
near the lawn gate; and then, when he did find his way inside among the
shrubbery, he found the sparrows were just going to bed, and bickering
and squabbling at a terrible rate, about who should have the dry boughs
of the pines, and who should not.
Meanwhile he was missed. He was often missed for the matter of that,
but he had seldom been so long away on such a night.
His father was an easy-minded farmer, who tilled his own acres; he was
reading the newspaper in an easy chair, and his mother, a delicate,
somewhat nervous, lady, was sewing near the window.
When the evening shadows began to fall, the nurse tapped at the room
door and entered. "Has Harry been here, mum?"
"No, Lizzie; don't you know where he is?"
"Haven't seen him for hours, mum. I made sure he was here."
"Oh! you silly child, to let him out of your sight like that. Go and
look for him at once."
"Where _is_ the child, I wonder," she continued, addressing her husband.
"Where _can_ Harold be?"
"Mm? what?" said Harry's father, looking lazily over his newspaper.
"Child Harold? Gone on a pilgrimage perhaps."
"Oh! don't be foolish," said his wife, petulantly. "Well, my dear, how
should I know. Very likely he is up in the dusty attic squatting among
the cobwebs, or rummaging for curiosities in some old drawer or
another."
But Harry was not upstairs among the cobwebs, nor rummaging in any
drawer whatever, nor talking to John in the stable, nor playing with his
toys in the loft, nor anywhere else that any one could think of.
So there was a pretty to do.
But in the midst of it all, lo! Eily and Harry both presented
themselves at the hall door, and you could not have said which of the
two was in the most miserable plight. Both were _so_ wet and _so_
bedraggled.
"Oh! please, dear mamma," said Harry, "I'm _so_ hungry and so is poor
Eily."
His mother was too happy to scold him, and his father laughed heartily
at the whole affair. For Harry had neither sisters nor brothers.
While the boy was being stripped and re-dressed in dry clothes, the dog
threw herself in front of the kitchen fife.
Presently they both had supper. If Harry was pale while playing at
bubble-ships in the water-vat, he was rosy enough now, and verily his
cheeks shone in the lamplight.
Before he knelt down that night by his mother's knee to say his prayers,
she asked him if he had done much wrong to-day.
"Oh! yes, dear mamma," was the reply, "I _did_ tease Towsie so."
Book 1--CHAPTER TWO.