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BROTHERS OF PITY
AND OTHER TALES OF BEASTS AND MEN
by
JULIANA HORATIA EWING
London:
Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,
Northumberland Avenue, W.C.
Brighton: 129, North Street.
New York: E. & J.B. Young & Co.
[Published under the direction of the General Literature Committee.]
DEDICATED
TO MY DEAR SISTER
HORATIA KATHARINE FRANCES GATTY.
J.H.E.
PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.
These tales have appeared, during some years past, in _Aunt Judy's
Magazine for Young People_.
"Father Hedgehog and his Neighbours," and "Toots and Boots," were both
suggested by Fedor Flinzer's clever pictures; but "Toots" was also "a
real person." In his latter days he was an honorary member of the Royal
Engineers' Mess at Aldershot, and, on occasion, dined at table.
"The Hens of Hencastle" is not mine. It is a free translation from the
German of Victor Blüthgen, by Major Yeatman-Biggs, R.A., to whom I am
indebted for permission to include it in my volume, as a necessary
prelude to "Flaps." The story took my fancy greatly, but the ending
seemed to me imperfect and unsatisfactory, especially in reference to so
charming a character as the old watch dog, and I wrote "Flaps" as a
sequel.
The frontispiece was designed specially for this volume, by Mr. Charles
Whymper, and the _Fratello della Misericordia_ (from a photograph kindly
sent me by a friend) is by the same artist.
J.H.E.
PREFACE TO NEW EDITION.
The foregoing Preface was written by Mrs. Ewing for the first edition of
_Brothers of Pity, and Other Tales_. The book contains five stories,
illustrated by the pictures of which my sister speaks; and it is still
sold by the S.P.C.K. "Toots and Boots" was so minutely adapted to
Flinzer's pictures, that the tale suffers in being parted from them.
Still, it is to be hoped that readers of the un-illustrated version will
not have as much difficulty as Toots in solving the mystery of the
Mouse's escape! I have added four more tales of "Beasts and Men" to the
present edition, as they have not been included in any previous
collections of my sister's stories. "A Week Spent in a Glass Pond"
appeared first in _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, October 1876, and was
afterwards published separately with coloured illustrations. The habits
of the water beasts are described with the strictest fidelity to nature,
even the delicate differences in character between the Great and the Big
Black water beetles are most accurately drawn.
"Among the Merrows" has not been republished since it came out in _Aunt
Judy's Magazine_, November 1872. At that time the Crystal Palace
Aquarium was a novelty, and the Zoological Station at Naples not fully
formed--but, though the paper is behind the times in statistics, it is
worth retaining for other reasons.
"Tiny's Tricks and Toby's Tricks" as a specimen of versification might
perhaps have been included in the volume of _Verses for Children_, but
it seemed best to keep it with the "Owl Hoots," as these papers were the
last that Mrs. Ewing wrote. The first appeared in _The Child's Pictorial
Magazine_ a few days before her death, and the "Hoots" soon afterwards.
The illustrations to both were drawn by Mr. Gordon Browne at my sister's
special request, and they are now reproduced with gratitude for his
labour of love.
HORATIA K. F. EDEN.
October 1895.
CONTENTS
BROTHERS OF PITY
FATHER HEDGEHOG AND HIS NEIGHBOURS
TOOTS AND BOOTS
THE HENS OF HENCASTLE
FLAPS
A WEEK SPENT IN A GLASS POND
AMONG THE MERROWS
TINY'S TRICKS AND TOBY'S TRICKS
THE OWL IN THE IVY BUSH
BROTHERS OF PITY.
"Who dug his grave?"
* * * * *
"Who made his shroud?"
"I," said the Beetle,
"With my thread and needle,
I made his shroud."--_Death of Cock Robin_.
It must be much easier to play at things when there are more of you than
when there is only one.
There is only one of me, and Nurse does not care about playing at
things. Sometimes I try to persuade her; but if she is in a good temper
she says she has got a bone in her leg, and if she isn't she says that
when little boys can't amuse themselves it's a sure and certain sign
they've got "the worrits," and the sooner they are put to bed with a
Gregory's powder "the better for themselves and every one else."
Godfather Gilpin can play delightfully when he has time, and he believes
in fancy things, only he is so very busy with his books. But even when
he is reading he will let you put him in the game. He doesn't mind
pretending to be a fancy person if he hasn't to do anything, and if I do
speak to him he always remembers who he is. That is why I like playing
in his study better than in the nursery. And Nurse always says "He's
safe enough, with the old gentleman," so I'm allowed to go there as much
as I like.
Godfather Gilpin lets me play with the books, because I always take care
of them. Besides, there is nothing else to play with, except the
window-curtains, for the chairs are always full. So I sit on the floor,
and sometimes I build with the books (particularly Stonehenge), and
sometimes I make people of them, and call them by the names on their
backs, and the ones in other languages we call foreigners, and Godfather
Gilpin tells me what countries they belong to. And sometimes I lie on my
face and read (for I could read when I was four years old), and
Godfather Gilpin tells me the hard words. The only rule he makes is,
that I must get all the books out of one shelf, so that they are easily
put away again. I may have any shelf I like, but I must not mix the
shelves up.
I always took care of the books, and never had any accident with any of
them till the day I dropped Jeremy Taylor's _Sermons_. It made me very
miserable, because I knew that Godfather Gilpin could never trust me so
much again.
However, if it had not happened, I should not have known anything about
the Brothers of Pity; so, perhaps (as Mrs. James, Godfather Gilpin's
house-keeper, says), "All's for the best," and "It's an ill wind that
blows nobody good."
It happened on a Sunday, I remember, and it was the day after the day on
which I had had the shelf in which all the books were alike. They were
all foreigners--Italians--and all their names were _Goldoni_, and there
were forty-seven of them, and they were all in white and gold. I could
not read any of them, but there were lots of pictures, only I did not
know what the stories were about. So next day, when Godfather Gilpin
gave me leave to play a Sunday game with the books, I thought I would
have English ones, and big ones, for a change, for the _Goldonis_ were
rather small.
We played at church, and I was the parson, and Godfather Gilpin was the
old gentleman who sits in the big pew with the knocker, and goes to
sleep (because he wanted to go to sleep), and the books were the
congregation. They were all big, but some of them were fat, and some of
them were thin, like real people--not like the _Goldonis_, which were
all alike.
I was arranging them in their places and looking at their names, when I
saw that one of them was called Taylor's _Sermons_, and I thought I
would keep that one out and preach a real sermon out of it when I had
read prayers. Of course I had to do the responses as well as "Dearly
beloved brethren" and those things, and I had to sing the hymns too, for
the books could not do anything, and Godfather Gilpin was asleep.
When I had finished the service I stood behind a chair that was full of
newspapers, for a pulpit, and I lifted up Taylor's _Sermons_, and rested
it against the chair, and began to look to see what I would preach. It
was an old book, bound in brown leather, and ornamented with gold, with
a picture of a man in a black gown and a round black cap and a white
collar in the beginning; and there was a list of all the sermons with
their names and the texts. I read it through, to see which sounded the
most interesting, and I didn't care much for any of them. However, the
last but one was called "A Funeral Sermon, preached at the Obsequies of
the Right Honourable the Countess of Carbery;" and I wondered what
obsequies were, and who the Countess of Carbery was, and I thought I
would preach that sermon and try to find out.
There was a very long text, and it was not a very easy one. It was:
"For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which
cannot be gathered up again: neither doth GOD respect any
person: yet doth He devise means that His banished be not expelled from
Him."
The sermon wasn't any easier than the text, and half the _s_'s were like
_f_'s which made it rather hard to preach, and there was Latin mixed up
with it, which I had to skip. I had preached two pages when I got into
the middle of a long sentence, of which part was this: "Every trifling
accident discomposes us; and as the face of waters wafting in a storm so
wrinkles itself, that it makes upon its forehead furrows deep and hollow
like a grave: so do our great and little cares and trifles first make
the wrinkles of old age, and then they dig a grave for us."
I knew the meaning of the words "wrinkles," and "old age." Godfather
Gilpin's forehead had unusually deep furrows, and, almost against my
will, I turned so quickly to look if his wrinkles were at all like the
graves in the churchyard, that Taylor's _Sermons_, in its heavy binding,
slipped from the pulpit and fell to the ground.
And Godfather Gilpin woke up, and (quite forgetting that he was really
the old gentleman in the pew with the knocker) said, "Dear me, dear me!
is that Jeremy Taylor that you are knocking about like a football? My
dear child, I can't lend you my books to play with if you drop them on
to the floor."
I took it up in my arms and carried it sorrowfully to Godfather Gilpin.
He was very kind, and said it was not hurt, and I might go on playing
with the others; but I could see him stroking its brown leather and gold
back, as if it had been bruised and wanted comforting, and I was far too
sorry about it to go on preaching, even if I had had anything to preach.
I picked up the smallest book I could see in the congregation, and sat
down and pretended to read. There were pictures in it, but I turned over
a great many, one after the other, before I could see any of them, my
eyes were so full of tears of mortification and regret. The first
picture I saw when my tears had dried up enough to let me see was a very
curious one indeed. It was a picture of two men carrying what looked
like another man covered with a blue quilt, on a sort of bier. But the
funny part about it was the dress of the men. They were wrapped up in
black cloaks, and had masks over their faces, and underneath the picture
was written, "_Fratelli della Misericordia_"--"Brothers of Pity."
I do not know whether the accident to Jeremy Taylor had made Godfather
Gilpin too anxious about his books to sleep, but I found that he was
keeping awake, and after a bit he said to me, "What are you staring so
hard and so quietly at, little Mouse?"
I looked at the back of the book, and it was called _Religious Orders_;
so I said, "It's called _Religious Orders_, but the picture I'm looking
at has got two men dressed in black, with their faces covered all but
their eyes, and they are carrying another man with something blue over
him."
"_Fratelli della Misericordia_," said Godfather Gilpin.
"Who are they, and what are they doing?" I asked. "And why are their
faces covered?"
"They belong to a body of men," was Godfather Gilpin's reply, "who bind
themselves to be ready in their turn to do certain offices of mercy,
pity, and compassion to the sick, the dying, and the dead. The
brotherhood is six hundred years old, and still exists. The men who
belong to it receive no pay, and they equally reject the reward of
public praise, for they work with covered faces, and are not known even
to each other. Rich men and poor men, noble men and working men, men of
letters and the ignorant, all belong to it, and each takes his turn when
it comes round to nurse the sick, carry the dying to hospital, and bury
the dead.'
"Is that a dead man under the blue coverlet?" I asked with awe.
"I suppose so," said Godfather Gilpin.
"But why don't his friends go to the funeral?" I inquired.
"He has no friends to follow him," said my godfather. "That is why he is
being buried by the Brothers of Pity."
Long after Godfather Gilpin had told me all that he could tell me of the
_Fratelli della Misericordia_--long after I had put the congregation
(including the _Religious Orders_ and Taylor's _Sermons_) back into the
shelf to which they belonged--the masked faces and solemn garb of the
men in the picture haunted me.
I have changed my mind a great many times, since I can remember, about
what I will be when I am grown up. Sometimes I have thought I should
like to be an officer and die in battle; sometimes I settled to be a
clergyman and preach splendid sermons to enormous congregations; once I
quite decided to be a head fireman and wear a brass helmet, and be
whirled down lighted streets at night, every one making way for me, on
errands of life and death.
But the history of the Brothers of Pity put me out of conceit with all
other heroes. It seemed better than anything I had ever thought of--to
do good works unseen of men, without hope of reward, and to those who
could make no return. For it rang in my ears that Godfather Gilpin had
said, "He has no friends--that is why he is being buried by the Brothers
of Pity."
I quite understood what I thought they must feel, because I had once
buried a cat who had no friends. It was a poor half-starved old thing,
for the people it belonged to had left it, and I used to see it slinking
up to the back door and looking at Tabby, who was very fat and sleek,
and at the scraps on the unwashed dishes after dinner. Mrs. Jones kicked
it out every time, and what happened to it before I found it lying
draggled and dead at the bottom of the Ha-ha, with the top of a kettle
still fastened to its scraggy tail, I never knew, and it cost me bitter
tears to guess. It cost me some hard work, too, to dig the grave, for my
spade was so very small.
I don't think Mrs. Jones would have cared to be a Brother of Pity, for
she was very angry with me for burying that cat, because it was such a
wretched one, and so thin and dirty, and looked so ugly and smelt so
nasty. But that was just why I wanted to give it a good funeral, and why
I picked my crimson lily and put it in the grave, because it seemed so
sad the poor thing should be like that when it might have been clean and
fluffy, and fat and comfortable, like Tabby, if it had had a home and
people to look after it.
It was remembering about the cat that made me think that there were no
Brothers of Pity (not even in Tuscany, for I asked Godfather Gilpin) to
bury beasts and birds and fishes when they have no friends to go to
their funerals. And that was how it was that I settled to be a Brother
of Pity without waiting till I grew up and could carry men.
I had a shilling of my own, and with sixpence of it I bought a yard and
a half of black calico at the post-office shop, and Mrs. Jones made me a
cloak out of it; and with the other sixpence I bought a mask--for they
sell toys there too. It was not a right sort of mask, but I could not
make Mrs. Jones understand about a hood with two eye-holes in it, and I
did not like to show her the picture, for if she had seen that I wanted
to play at burying people, perhaps she would not have made me the cloak.
She made it very well, and it came down to my ankles, and I could hide
my spade under it. The worst of the mask was that it was a funny one,
with a big nose; but it hid my face all the same, and when you get
inside a mask you can feel quite grave whatever it's painted like.
I had never had so happy a summer before as the one when I was a Brother
of Pity. I heard Nurse saying to Mrs. Jones that "there was no telling
what would keep children out of mischief," for that I "never seemed to
be tired of that old black rag and that ridiculous face."
But it was not the dressing-up that pleased me day after day, it was the
chance of finding dead bodies with no friends to bury them. Going out is
quite a new thing when you have something to look for; and Godfather
Gilpin says he felt just the same in the days when he used to collect
insects.
I found a good many corpses of one sort and another: birds and mice and
frogs and beetles, and sometimes bigger bodies--such as kittens and
dogs. The stand of my old wooden horse made a capital thing to drag them
on, for all the wheels were there, and I had a piece of blue
cotton-velvet to put on the top, but the day I found a dead mole I did
not cover him. I put him outside, and he looked like black velvet lying
on blue velvet. It seemed quite a pity to put him into the dirty ground,
with such a lovely coat.
One day I was coming back from burying a mouse, and I saw a "flying
watchman" beetle lying quite stiff and dead, as I thought, with his legs
stretched out, and no friends; so I put him on the bier at once, and put
the blue velvet over him, and drew him to the place where the mouse's
grave was. When I took the pall off and felt him, and turned him over
and over, he was still quite rigid, so I felt sure he was dead, and
began to dig his grave; but when I had finished and went back to the
bier, the flying watchman was just creeping over the wheel. He had only
pretended to be dead, and had given me all that trouble for nothing.
When first I became a Brother of Pity, I thought I would have a
graveyard to bury all the creatures in, but afterwards I changed my mind
and settled to bury them all near wherever I found them. But I got some
bits of white wood, and fastened them across each other with bits of
wire, and so marked every grave.
At last there were lots of them dotted about the fields and woods I
knew. I remembered to whom most of them belonged, and even if I had
forgotten, it made a very good game, to pretend to be a stranger in the
neighbourhood, and then pretend to be somebody else, talking to myself,
and saying, "Wherever you see those little graves some poor creature has
been buried by the Brothers of Pity."
I did not like to read the burial service, for fear it should not be
quite right (especially for frogs; there were so many of them in summer,
and they were so horrid-looking, I used to bury several together, and
pretend it was the time of the plague); but I did not like not having
any service at all. So when I put on my cloak and mask, and took my
spade and the bier, I said, "Brothers, let us prepare to perform this
work of mercy," which is the first thing the real _Fratelli della
Misericordia_ say when they are going out. And when I buried the body I
said, "Go in peace," which is the last thing that they say. Godfather
Gilpin told me, and I learnt it by heart.
I enjoyed it very much. There were graves of beasts and birds who had
died without friends in the hedges and the soft parts of the fields in
almost all our walks. I never showed them to Nurse, but I often wondered
that she did not notice them. I always touched my hat when I passed
them, and sometimes it was very difficult to do so without her seeing
me, but it made me quite uncomfortable if I passed a grave without. When
I could not find any bodies I amused myself with making wreaths to hang
over particularly nice poor beasts, such as a bullfinch or a kitten.
I had been a Brother of Pity for several months, when a very curious
thing happened.
One summer evening I went by myself after tea into a steep little field
at the back of our house, with an old stone-quarry at the top, on the
ledges of which, where the earth had settled, I used to play at making
gardens. And there, lying on a bit of very stony ground, half on the
stones and half on the grass, was a dead robin-redbreast. I love robins
very much, and it was not because I wanted one to die, but because I
thought that if one did die, I should so like to bury him, that I had
wished to find a dead robin ever since I became a Brother of Pity. It
was rather late, but it wanted nearly an hour to my usual bedtime, so I
thought I would go home at once for my dress and spade and bier, and for
some roses. For I had resolved to bury this (my first robin-redbreast)
in a grave lined with rose-leaves, and to give him a wreath of
forget-me-nots.
Just as I was going I heard a loud buzz above my head, and something hit
me in the face. It was a beetle, whirring about in the air, and as I
turned to leave poor Robin the beetle sat down on him, on the middle of
his red breast, and by still hearing the buzzing, I found that another
beetle was whirling and whirring just above my head in the air. I like
beetles (especially the flying watchmen), and these ones were black too;
so I said, for fun, "You've got on your black things, and if you'll take
care of the body till I get my spade you shall be Brothers of Pity."
I ran home, and I need not have gone indoors at all, for I keep my cloak
and my spade and the bier in the summer-house, but the bits of wood were
in the nursery cupboard, so, after I had got some good roses, and was
quite ready, I ran up-stairs, and there, to my great vexation, Nurse met
me, and said I was to go to bed.
I thought it was very hard, because it had been a very hot day, and I
had had to go a walk in the heat of the sun along the old coaching-road
with Nurse, and it seemed so provoking, now it was cool and the moon was
rising, that I should have to go to bed, especially as Nurse was sending
me there earlier than usual because she wanted to go out herself, and I
knew it.
I tried to go to sleep, but I couldn't. Every time I opened my eyes the
moonlight was more and more like daylight through the white blind. At
last I almost thought I must have really been to sleep without knowing
it, and that it must be morning. So I got out of bed, and went to the
window and peeped; but it was still moonlight--only moonlight as bright
as day--and I saw Nurse and two of the maids just going through the
upper gate into the park.
In one moment I made up my mind. Nurse had only put me to bed to get me
out of the way. I did not mean to trouble her, but I was determined not
to lose the chance of being Brother of Pity to a robin-redbreast.
I dressed myself as well as I could, got out unobserved, and made my way
to the summer-house. Things look a little paler by moonlight, otherwise
I could see quite well. I put on my cloak, took my spade and the handle
of the bier in my right hand, and holding the mask over my face with my
left, I made my way to the quarry field.
It was a lovely night, and as I strolled along I thought with myself
that the ground where Robin lay was too stony for my spade, and that I
must move him a little lower, where some soft earth bordered one side of
the quarry.
I was as certain as I had ever been of anything that I did not think
about this till then, but when I got to the quarry the body was gone
from the place where I had found it; and when I looked lower, on the bit
of soft earth there lay Robin, just in the place where I was settling in
my mind that I would bury him.
I could not believe my eyes through the holes in my mask, so I pulled it
off, but there was no doubt about the fact. There he lay; and round him,
when I looked closer, I saw a ridge like a rampart of earth, which
framed him neatly and evenly, as if he were already halfway into his
grave.
The moonlight was as clear as day, there was no mistake as to what I
saw, and whilst I was looking the body of the bird began to sink by
little jerks, as if some one were pulling it from below. When first it
moved I thought that poor Robin could not be dead after all, and that he
was coming to life again like the flying watchman, but I soon saw that
he was not, and that some one was pulling him down into a grave.
When I felt quite sure of this, when I had rubbed my eyes to clear them,
and pulled up the lashes to see if I was awake, I was so horribly
frightened that, with my mask in one hand and the spade and the handle
of my bier in the other, I ran home as fast as my legs would carry me,
leaving the roses and the cross and the blue-velvet pall behind me in
the quarry.
Nurse was still out; and I crept back to bed without detection, where I
dreamed disturbedly of invisible gravediggers all through the night.
I did not feel quite so much afraid by daylight, but I was not a bit
less puzzled as to how Cock Robin had been moved from the stony place to
the soft earth, and who dug his grave. I could not ask Nurse about it,
for I should have had to tell her I had been out, and I could not have
trusted Mrs. Jones either; but Godfather Gilpin never tells tales of me,
and he knows everything, so I went to him.
The more I thought of it the more I saw that the only way was to tell
him everything; for if you only tell parts of things you sometimes find
yourself telling lies before you know where you are. So I put on my
cloak and my mask, and took the shovel and bier into the study, and sat
down on the little foot-stool I always wait on when Godfather Gilpin is
in the middle of reading, and keeps his head down to show that he does
not want to be disturbed.
When he shut up his book and looked at me he burst out laughing. I meant
to have asked him why, but I was so busy afterwards I forgot. I suppose
it was the nose, for it had got rather broken when I fell down as I was
burying the old drake that Neptune killed.
But he was very kind to me, and I told him all about my being a Brother
of Pity, and how I had wanted to bury a robin, and how I had found one,
and how he had frightened me by burying himself.
"Some other Brother of Pity must have found him," said my godfather,
still laughing. "And he must have got Jack the Giant-killer's cloak of
darkness for _his_ dress, so that you did not see him."
"There was nobody there," I earnestly answered, shaking my mask as I
thought of the still, lonely moonlight. "Nothing but two beetles, and I
said if they would take care of him they might be Brothers of Pity."
"They took you at your word, _mio fratello_. Take off your mask, which a
little distracts me, and I will tell you who buried Cock Robin."
I knew when Godfather Gilpin was really telling me things--without
thinking of something else, I mean,--and I listened with all my ears.
"The beetles whom you very properly admitted into your brotherhood,"
said my godfather, "were burying beetles, or sexton beetles,[A] as they
are sometimes called. They bury animals of all sizes in a surprisingly
short space of time. If two of them cannot conduct the funeral, they
summon others. They carry the bodies, if necessary, to suitable ground.
With their flat heads (for the sexton beetle does not carry a shovel as
you do) they dig trench below trench all round the body they are
committing to the earth, after which they creep under it and pull it
down, and then shovel away once more, and so on till it is deep enough
in, and then they push the earth over it and tread it and pat it neatly
down."
"Then was it the beetles who were burying the robin-redbreast?" I
gasped.
"I suspect so," said Godfather Gilpin. "But we will go and see."
He actually knocked a book down in his hurry to get his hat, and when I
helped him to pick it up, and said, "Why, godfather, you're as bad as I
was about Taylor's _Sermons_," he said, "I am an old fool, my dear. I
used to be very fond of insects before I settled down to the work I'm at
now, and it quite excites me to go out into the fields again."
I never had a nicer walk, for he showed me lots of things I had never
noticed, before we got to the quarry field; and then I took him straight
to the place where the bit of soft earth was, and there was nothing to
be seen, and the earth was quite smooth and tidy. But when he poked with
his stick the ground was very soft, and after he had poked a little we
saw some nut-brown feathers, and we knew it was Robin's grave.
And I said, "Don't poke any more, please. I wanted to bury him with
rose-leaves, but the beetles were dressed in black, and I gave them
leave, and I think I'll put a cross over him, because I don't think it's
untrue to show that he was buried by the Brothers of Pity."
Godfather Gilpin quite agreed with me, and we made a nice mound (for I
had brought my spade), and put the best kind of cross, and afterwards I
made a wreath of forget-me-nots to hang on it.
He was the only robin-redbreast I have found since I became a Brother of
Pity, and that was how it was that it was not I who buried him after
all.
Many of the walks that Nurse likes to take I do not care about, but one
place she likes to go to, especially on Sunday, I like too, and that is
the churchyard.
I was always fond of it. It is so very nice to read the tombstones, and
fancy what the people were like, particularly the ones who lived long
ago, in 1600 and something, with beautifully-shaped sixes and capital
letters on their graves. For they must have dressed quite differently
from us, and perhaps they knew Charles the First and Oliver Cromwell.
Diggory the gravedigger never talks much, but I like to watch him. I
think he is rather deaf, for when I asked him if he thought, if he went
on long enough, he could dig himself through to the other side of the
world, he only said "Hey?" and chucked up a great shovelful of earth.
But perhaps it was because he was so deep down that he could not hear.
Now, when he is quite out of sight, and chucks the earth up like that,
it makes me think of the sexton beetles; for Godfather Gilpin says they
drive their flat heads straight down, and then lift them with a sharp
jerk, and throw the earth up so.
I said to Diggory one day, "Don't you wish your head was flat, instead
of being as it is, so that you could shovel with it instead of having to
have a spade?"
He wasn't so deep down that time, and he heard me, and put his head up
out of the grave and rested on his spade. But he only scratched his head
and stared, and said, "You be an uncommon queer young gentleman, to be
sure," and then went on digging again. And I was afraid he was angry, so
I daren't ask him any more.
I daren't of course ask him if he is a Brother of Pity, but I think he
deserves to be, for workhouse burials at any rate; for if you have only
the Porter and Silly Billy at your funeral, I don't think you can call
that having friends.
I have taken the beetles for my brothers, of course. Godfather Gilpin
says I should find far more bodies than I do if they were not burying
all along. I often wish I could understand them when they hum, and that
they knew me.
I wonder if either they or Diggory know that they belong to the order of
_Fratelli della Misericordia_, and that I belong to it too?
But of course it would not be right to ask them, even if either of them
would answer me, for if we were "known, even to each other," we should
not really and truly be Brothers of Pity.
NOTE--Burying beetles are to the full as skilful as they
are described in this tale. With a due respect for the graces of
art, I have not embodied the fact that they feed on the carcases
which they bury. The last thing that the burying beetle does, after
tidying the grave, is to make a small hole and go down himself,
having previously buried his partner with their prey. Here the eggs
are laid, and the larvæ hatched and fed.
FOOTNOTES:
[Footnote A: _Necrophorus humator_, &c.]
FATHER HEDGEHOG AND HIS NEIGHBOURS.
* * * * *
CHAPTER I.
The care of a large family is no light matter, as everybody knows. And
that year I had an unusually large family. No less than seven young
urchins for Mrs. Hedgehog and myself to take care of and start in life;
and there was not a prickly parent on this side of the brook, or within
three fields beyond, who had more than four.
My father's brother had six one year, I know. It was the summer that I
myself was born. I can remember hearing my father and mother talk about
it before I could see. As these six cousins were discussed in a tone of
interest and respect which seemed to bear somewhat disparagingly on me
and my brother and sisters (there were only four of _us_), I was rather
glad to learn that they also had been born blind. My father used to go
and see them, and report their progress to my mother on his return.
"They can see to-day."
"They have curled themselves up. Every one of them. Six beautiful little
balls; as round as crab-apples and as safe as burrs!"
I tried to curl myself up, but I could only get my coat a little way
over my nose. I cried with vexation. But one should not lose heart too
easily. With patience and perseverance most things can be brought about,
and I could soon both see and curl myself into a ball. It was about this
time that my father hurried home one day, tossing the leaves at least
three inches over his head as he bustled along.
"What in the hedge do you think has happened to the six?" said he.
"Oh, don't tell me!" cried my mother; "I am so nervous." (Which she was,
and rather foolish as well, which used to irritate my father, who was
hasty tempered, as I am myself.)
"They've been taken by gipsies and flitted," said he.
"What do you mean by _flitted_?" inquired my mother.
"A string is tied round a hind-leg of each, and they are tethered in the
grass behind the tent, just as the donkey is tethered. So they will
remain till they grow fat, and then they will be cooked."
"Will the donkey be cooked when he is fat?" asked my mother.
"I smell valerian," said my father; on which she put out her nose, and
he ran at it with his prickles. He always did this when he was annoyed
with any member of his family; and though we knew what was coming, we
are all so fond of valerian, we could never resist the temptation to
sniff, just on the chance of there being some about.
I had long wanted to see my cousins, and I now begged my father to let
me go with him the next time he went to visit them. But he was rather
cross that morning, and he ran at me with his back up.
"So you want to gad about and be kidnapped and flitted too, do you? Just
let me--"
But when I saw him coming, I rolled myself up as tight as a wood-louse,
and as my ears were inside I really did not hear what else he said. But
I was not a whit the less resolved to see my cousins.
One day my father bustled home.
"Upon my whine," said he, "they live on the fat of the land. Scraps of
all kinds, apples, and a dish of bread and milk under their very noses.
I sat inside a gorse bush on the bank, and watched them till my mouth
watered."
The next day he reported--
"They've cooked one--in clay. There are only five now."
And the next day--
"They've cooked another. Now there are only four."
"There won't be a cousin left if I wait much longer," thought I.
On the morrow there were only three.
My mother began to cry. "My poor dear nephews and nieces!" said she
(though she had never seen them). "What a world this is!"
"We must take it as we eat eggs," said my father, with that air of
wisdom which naturally belongs to the sayings of the head of the family,
"the shell with the yolk. And they have certainly had excellent
victuals."
Next morning he went off as usual, and I crept stealthily after him.
With his spines laid flat to his sides, and his legs well under him, he
ran at a good round pace, and as he did not look back I followed him
with impunity. By and by he climbed a bank and then crept into a furze
bush, whose prickles were no match for his own. I dared not go right
into the bush for fear he should see me, but I settled myself as well as
I could under shelter of a furze branch, and looked down on to the other
side of the bank, where my father's nose was also directed. And there I
saw my three cousins, tethered as he had said, and apparently very busy
over-eating themselves on food which they had not had the trouble of
procuring.
If I had heard less about the cooking, I might have envied them; as it
was, that somewhat voracious appetite characteristic of my family
disturbed my judgment sufficiently to make me almost long to be flitted
myself. I fancy it must have been when I pushed out my nose and sniffed
involuntarily towards the victuals, that the gipsy man heard me.
He had been lying on the grass, looking much lazier than my
cousins--which is saying a good deal--and only turning his swarthy face
when the gipsy girl, as she moved about and tended the fire, got out of
the sight of his eyes. Then he moved so that he could see her again;
not, as it seemed, to see what she was doing or to help her to do it,
but as leaves move with the wind, or as we unpacked our noses against
our wills when my father said he smelt valerian.
She was very beautiful. Her skin was like a trout pool--clear and yet
brown. I never saw any eyes like her eyes, though our neighbour's--the
Water Rat--at times recalls them. Her hair was the colour of ripe
blackberries in a hot hedge--very ripe ones, with the bloom on. She
moved like a snake. I have seen my father chase a snake more than once,
and I have seen a good many men and women in my time. Some of them walk
like my father, they bustle along and kick up the leaves as he does; and
some of them move quickly and yet softly, as snakes go. The gipsy girl
moved so, and wherever she went the gipsy man's eyes went after her.
Suddenly he turned them on me. For an instant I was paralyzed and stood
still. I could hear my father bustling down the bank; in a few minutes
he would be at home, where my brother and sisters were safe and sound,
whilst I was alone and about to reap the reward of my disobedience, in
the fate of which he had warned me--to be taken by gipsies and flitted.
Nothing, my dear children--my seven dear children--is more fatal in an
emergency than indecision. I was half disposed to hurry after my father,
and half resolved to curl myself into a ball. I had one foot out and
half my back rounded, when the gipsy man pinned me to the ground with a
stick, and the gipsy girl strode up. I could not writhe myself away from
the stick, but I gazed beseechingly at the gipsy girl and squealed for
my life.
"Let the poor little brute go, Basil," she said, laughing. "We've three
flitted still."
"Let it go?" cried the young man scornfully, and with another poke,
which I thought had crushed me to bits, though I was still able to cry
aloud.
The gipsy girl turned her back and went away with one movement and
without speaking.
"Sybil!" cried the man; but she did not look round.
"Sybil, I say!"
She was breaking sticks for the fire slowly across her knee, but she
made no answer. He took his stick out of my back, and went after her.
"I've let it go," he said, throwing himself down again, "and a good
dinner has gone with it. But you can do what you like with me--and small
thanks I get for it."
"I can do anything with you but keep you out of mischief," she answered,
fixing her eyes steadily on him. He sat up and began to throw stones,
aiming them at my three cousins.
"Take me for good and all, instead of tormenting me, and you will," he
said.
"Will you give up Jemmy and his gang?" she asked; but as he hesitated
for an instant, she tossed the curls back from her face and moved away,
saying, "Not you; for all your talk! And yet for your sake, _I_ would
give up--"
He bounded to his feet, but she had put the bonfire between them, and
before he could get round it, she was on the other side of a tilted
cart, where another woman, in a crimson cloak, sat doing something to a
dirty pack of cards.
I did not like to see the gipsy man on his feet again, and having
somewhat recovered breath, I scrambled down the bank and got home as
quickly as the stiffness and soreness of my skin would allow.
I never saw my cousins again, and it was long before I saw any more
gipsies; for that day's adventure gave me a shock to which my children
owe the exceeding care and prudence that I display in the choice of our
summer homes and winter retreats, and in repressing every tendency to a
wandering disposition among the members of my family.