That summer--I mean the summer when I had seven--we had the most
charming home imaginable. It was in a wood, and on that side of the wood
which is farthest from houses and highroads. Here it was bounded by a
brook, and beyond this lay a fine pasture field.
There are fields and fields. I never wish to know a better field than
this one. I seldom go out much till the evening, but if business should
take one along the hedge in the heat of the sun, there are as juicy and
refreshing crabs to be picked up under a tree about half-way down the
south side, as the thirstiest creature could desire.
And when the glare and drought of midday have given place to the mild
twilight of evening, and the grass is refreshingly damped with dew, and
scents are strong, and the earth yields kindly to the nose, what beetles
and lob-worms reward one's routing!
I am convinced that the fattest and stupidest slugs that live, live near
the brook. I never knew one who found out I was eating him, till he was
half-way down my throat. And just opposite to the place where I
furnished your dear mother's nest, is a small plantation of burdocks, on
the underside of which stick the best flavoured snails I am acquainted
with, in such inexhaustible quantities, that a hedgehog might have
fourteen children in a season, and not fear their coming short of
provisions.
And in the early summer, in the long grass on the edge of the wood--but
no! I will not speak of it.
My dear children, my seven dear children, may you never know what it is
to taste a pheasant's egg--to taste several pheasant's eggs, and to eat
them, shells and all.
There are certain pleasures of which a parent may himself have partaken,
but which, if he cannot reconcile them with his ideas of safety and
propriety, he will do well not to allow his children even to hear of. I
do not say that I wish I had never tasted a pheasant's egg myself, but,
when I think of traps baited with valerian, of my great-uncle's
great-coat nailed to the keeper's door, of the keeper's heavy-heeled
boots, and of the impropriety of poaching, I feel, as a father, that it
is desirable that you should never know that there are such things as
eggs, and then you will be quite happy without them.
But it was not the abundant and varied supply of food which had
determined my choice of our home: it was not even because no woodland
bower could be more beautiful,--because the coppice foliage was fresh
and tender overhead, and the old leaves soft and elastic to the prickles
below,--because the young oaks sheltered us behind, and we had a
charming outlook over the brook in front, between a gnarled alder and a
young sycamore, whose embracing branches were the lintel of our doorway.
No. I chose this particular spot in this particular wood, because I had
reason to believe it to be a somewhat neglected bit of what men call
"property,"--because the bramble bushes were unbroken, the fallen leaves
untrodden, the hyacinths and ragged-robins ungathered by human feet and
hands,--because the old fern-fronds faded below the fresh green
plumes,--because the violets ripened seed,--because the trees were
unmarked by woodmen and overpopulated with birds, and the water-rat sat
up in the sun with crossed paws and without a thought of
danger,--because, in short, no birds'-nesting, fern-digging,
flower-picking, leaf-mould-wanting, vermin-hunting creatures ever came
hither to replenish their ferneries, gardens, cages, markets, and
museums.
My feelings can therefore be imagined when I was roused from an
afternoon nap one warm summer's day by the voices of men and women.
Several possibilities came into my mind, and I imparted them to my wife.
"They may be keepers."
"They may be poachers."
"They may be boys birds'-nesting."
"They may be street-sellers of ferns, moss, and so forth."
"They may be collectors of specimens."
"They may be pic-nic-ers--people who bring salt twisted up in a bit of
paper with them, and leave it behind when they go away. Don't let the
children touch it!"
"They may be--and this is the worst that could happen--men collecting
frogs, toads, newts, snails, _and hedgehogs_ for the London markets. We
must keep very quiet. They will go away at sunset."
I was quite wrong, and when I heard the slow wheels of a cart I knew
it. They were none of these things, and they did not go away. They were
travelling tinkers, and they settled down and made themselves at home
within fifty yards of mine.
My nerves have never been strong since that day under the furze bush. My
first impulse was to roll myself up so tightly that I got the cramp,
whilst every spine on my back stood stiff with fright. But after a time
I recovered myself, and took counsel with Mrs. Hedgehog.
"Two things," said she, "are most important. We must keep the children
from gadding, and we must make them hold their tongues."
"They never can be so foolish as to wish to quit your side, my dear, in
the circumstances," said I. But I was mistaken.
I know nothing more annoying to a father who has learned the danger of
indiscreet curiosity in his youth, than to find his sons apparently
quite uninfluenced by his valuable experience.
"What are tinkers like?" was the first thing said by each one of the
seven on the subject.
"They are a set of people," I replied, in a voice as sour as a green
crab, "who if they hear us talking, or catch us walking abroad, will
kill your mother and me, and temper up two bits of clay and roll us up
in them. Then they will put us into a fire to bake, and when the clay
turns red they will take us out. The clay will fall off and our coats
with it. What remains they will eat--as we eat snails. You seven will be
flitted. That is, you will be pegged to the ground till you grow big."
(I thought it well not to mention the bread and milk.) "Then they will
kill and bake and eat you in the same fashion."
I think this frightened the children; but they would talk about the
tinkers, though they dared not go near them.
"The best thing you can do," said Mrs. Hedgehog, "is to tell them a
story to keep them quiet. You can modulate your own voice, and stop if
you hear the tinkers."
Hereupon I told them a story (a very old one) of the hedgehog who ran a
race with a hare, on opposite sides of a hedge, for the wager of a louis
d'or and a bottle of brandy. It was a great favourite with them.
"The moral of the tale, my dear children," I was wont to say, "is, that
our respected ancestor's head saved his heels, which is never the case
with giddy-pated creatures like the hare."
"Perhaps it was a very young hare," said Mrs. Hedgehog, who is amiable,
and does not like to blame any one if it can be avoided.
"I don't think it can have been a _very_ young hare," said I, "or the
hedgehog would have eaten him instead of outwitting him. As it was, he
placed himself and Mrs. Hedgehog at opposite ends of the course. The
hare started on one side of the hedge and the hedgehog on the other.
Away went the hare like the wind, but Mr. Hedgehog took three steps and
went back to his place. When the hare reached his end of the hedge, Mrs.
Hedgehog, from the other side, called out, 'I'm here already.' Her voice
and her coat were very like her husband's, and the hare was not
observant enough to remark a slight difference of size and colour. The
moral of which is, my dear children, that one must use his eyes as well
as his legs in this world. The hare tried several runs, but there was
always a hedgehog at the goal when he got there. So he gave in at last,
and our ancestors walked comfortably home, taking the louis d'or and the
bottle of brandy with them."
"What is a louis d'or?" cried three of my children; and "What is
brandy?" asked the other four.
"I smell valerian," said I; on which they poked out their seven noses,
and I ran at them with my spines, for a father who is not an
Encyclopædia on all fours must adopt _some_ method of checking the
inquisitiveness of the young.
When grown-up people desire information or take an interest in their
neighbours, this, of course, is another matter. Mrs. Hedgehog and I had
never seen tinkers, and we resolved to take an early opportunity some
evening of sending the seven urchins down to the burdock plantations to
pick snails, whilst we paid a cautious visit to the tinker camp.
But mothers are sad fidgets, and anxious as Mrs. Hedgehog was to gratify
her curiosity, she kept putting off our expedition till the children's
spines should be harder; so I made one or two careful ones by myself,
and told her all the news on my return.