"But there was silence one bright golden day,
Through my own pine-hung mountains."
The sun shone very brightly next morning; the sky was blue; and a
silence, broken only by the constant roar of the torrent, brooded over
the bills.
We all went to see, or rather _seek_, for Professor Dick's Academy.
But for a long time all in vain, and I was beginning to think the events
of last evening must all have taken place in dreamland, when, emerging
from the trees, the stalwart form of the old shepherd himself was
observed coming towards us. In a few minutes more we were in the
cottage.
And there, sure enough was Dick hard at work teaching his class. _He_
was loose, his pupils all caged. We were warned to keep silence, and
did so as long as we could.
Dick repeated words and sentences over and over again, and some of the
pupils were most attentive and apt. And the way some of the more
earnest stretched down their necks, cocked their heads and listened, was
amusing in the extreme.
But there was one bad boy in the class--a saucy-looking cockatoo, with a
red garland round his neck.
"I want a bit o' sugar," was all he would say, and he kept on at it. "A
bit o' sugar, a bit o' sugar; I want a bit o' sugar."
The Professor went towards the delinquent's cage, as if to reason with
him; but the naughty bird laughed derisively, and finished off by making
a grab at Dick through the bars.
The old man at once threw a black cover over the cage, upon which the
bird's tune was changed, and in the dark he seemed to bitterly bemoan
his fate, repeating in a most lugubrious voice the words--"Poor Polly!
Poor _dear_ little Polly."
One of us laughed.
The spell was broken, and the Professor would teach no more.
"My birds will have a half-holiday," said the old shepherd, laughing.
He came with us to the caravans, and greatly delighted he was. We gave
him books and magazines, and that same morning shifted camp farther
east, promising, if ever we came that road again, to visit the shepherd
and Professor Dick's Academy.