strawberries grow. You know where the wren sits on her eggs, and, like
good children, pass by with soft steps and hushed voices, that you may
not disturb that little mother. You know (for I have shown you) where
the rare fern grows--a habitat happily yet unnoted in scientific pages.
_We_ never add its lovely fronds to our nosegays, and if we move a
root it is but to plant it in another part of the wood, with as much
mystery and circumspection as if we were performing some solemn
druidical rite. It is to us as a king in hiding, and the places of its
abode we keep faithfully secret. It will be thus held sacred by us
until, with all the seed its untouched fronds have scattered, and all
the offshoots we have propagated, it shall have become as plentiful as
Heaven intends all beautiful things to be. Every one is not so
scrupulous. There are certain ladies and gentlemen who picnic near my
cottage in the hot weather, and who tell each other that they love a
wood. Most of these good people have nevertheless neither eyes nor ears
for what goes on around them, except that they hear each other, and see
the cold collation. They will picnic there summer after summer, and not
know whether they sit under oaks or ashes, beeches or elms. All birds
sing for them the same song. Tell _them_ that such a plant is rare
in the neighbourhood, that there are but few specimens of it, and it
will not long be their fault if there are any. Does any one direct them
to it, they tear it ruthlessly up and carry it away. If by any chance a
root is left, it is left so dragged and pulled and denuded of earth,
that there is small chance that it will survive. Probably, also, the
ravished clump dies in the garden or pot to which it is transplanted,
either from neglect, or from ignorance of the conditions essential to
its life; and the rare plant becomes yet rarer. Oh! without doubt they
love a wood. It gives more shade than the largest umbrella, and is
cheaper for summer entertainment than a tent: there you get canopy and
carpet, fuel and water, shade and song, and beauty--all gratis; and
these are not small matters when one has invited a large party of one's
acquaintance. There are insects, it is true, which somewhat disturb our
friends; and as they do not know which sting, and which are harmless,
they kill all that come within their reach, as a safe general
principle. The town boys, too! They know the wood--that is to say, they
know where the wild fruits grow, and how to chase the squirrel, and rob
the birds' nests, and snare the birds. Well, well, my children; to know
and love a wood truly, it may be that one must live in it as I have
done; and then a lifetime will scarcely reveal all its beauties, or
exhaust its lessons. But even then, one must have eyes that see, and
ears that hear, or one misses a good deal. It was in the wood that I
heard this story that I shall tell you."
"How did you hear it?" asked the children.
"A thrush sang it to me one night."
"One night?" said the children. "Then you mean a nightingale."
"I mean a thrush," said the old man. "Do I not know the note of one
bird from another? I tell you that pine-tree by my cottage has a legend
of its own, and the topmost branch is haunted. Must all legends be
about the loves and sorrows of our self-satisfied race alone?"
"But did you really and truly hear it?" they asked. "I heard it," said
the old man. "But, as I tell you, one hears and one hears. I don't say
that everybody would have heard it, merely by sleeping in my chamber;
but, for the benefit of the least imaginative, I will assure you that
it is founded on fact."
"Begin! begin!" shouted the children.
"Once upon a time," said the old man, "there was a young thrush, who
was born in that beautiful dingle where we last planted the ---- fern.
His home-nest was close to the ground, but the lower one is, the less
fear of falling; and in woods, the elevation at which you sleep is a
matter of taste, and not of expense or gentility. He awoke to life when
the wood was dressed in the pale fresh green of early summer; and
believing, like other folk, that his own home was at least the
principal part of the world, earth seemed to him so happy and so
beautiful an abode, that his heart felt ready to burst with joy. The
ecstasy was almost pain, till wings and a voice came to him. Then, one
day, when, after a grey morning, the sun came out at noon, drawing the
scent from the old pine that looks in at my bedroom window, his joy
burst forth, after long silence, into song, and flying upwards, he sat
on the topmost branch of the pine, and sang as loud as he could sing to
the sun and the blue sky.
"'Joy! joy!' he sang. 'Fresh water and green woods, ambrosial sunshine
and sunflecked shade, chattering brooks and rustling leaves, glade, and
sward, and dell. Lichens and cool mosses, feathered ferns and flowers.
Green leaves! Green leaves! Summer! summer! summer!'
"It was monotonous, but every word came from the singer's heart, which
is not always the case. Thenceforward, though he slept near the ground,
he went up every day to this pine, as to some sacred high place, and
sang the same song, of which neither he nor I were ever weary.
"Let one be ever so inoffensive, however, one is not long left in peace
in this world, even in a wood. The thrush sang too loudly of his simple
happiness, and some boys from the town heard him and snared him, and
took him away in a dirty cloth cap, where he was nearly smothered. The
world is certainly not exclusively composed of sunshine, and green
woods, and odorous pines. He became almost senseless during the hot
dusty walk that led to the town. It was a seaport town, about two miles
from the wood, a town of narrow, steep streets, picturesque old houses,
and odours compounded of tar, dead fish, and many other scents less
agreeable than forest perfumes. The thrush was put into a small
wicker-cage in an upper room, in one of the narrowest and steepest of
the streets. "'I shall die to-night,' he piped. But he did not. He
lived that night, and for several nights and days following. The boys
took small care of him, however. He was often left without food,
without water, and always with too little air. Two or three times they
tried to sell him, but he was not bought, for no one could hear him
sing. One day he was hung outside the window, and partly owing to the
sun and fresh air, and partly because a woman was singing in the
street, he began to carol his old song.
"The woman was a street singer. She was even paler, thinner, and more
destitute-looking than such women usually are. In some past time there
had been beauty and feeling in her face, but the traces of both were
well-nigh gone. An indifference almost amounting to vacancy was there
now, and, except that she sang, you might almost have fancied her a
corpse. In her voice, also, there had once been beauty and feeling, and
here again the traces were small indeed. From time to time, she was
stopped by fits of coughing, when an ill-favoured hunchback, who
accompanied her on a tambourine, swore and scowled at her. She sang a
song of sentiment, with a refrain about
'Love and truth,
And joys of youth--'
on which the melody dwelt and quavered as if in mockery. As she sang, a
sailor came down the street. His collar was very large, his trousers
were very wide, his hat hung on the back of his head more as an
ornament than for shelter; and he had one of the roughest faces and the
gentlest hearts that ever went together since Beauty was entertained by
the Beast. His hands were in his pockets, where he could feel one
shilling and a penny, all the spare cash that remained to him after a
friendly stroll through the town. When he saw the street singer, he
stopped, pulled off his hat, and scratched his head, as was his custom
when he was puzzled or interested.
"'It's no good keeping an odd penny,' he said to himself; 'poor thing,
she looks bad enough!' And, bringing the penny to the surface out of
the depths of his pocket, he gave it to the woman. The hunchback came
forward to take it, but the sailor passed him with a shove of his
elbow, and gave it to the singer, who handed it over to her companion
without moving a feature, and went on with her song.
"'I'd like to break every bone in your ugly body,' muttered the sailor,
with a glance at the hunchback, who scowled in return.
"'I shall die of this close street, and of all I have suffered,'
thought the thrush.
"'Green leaves! green leaves!' he sang, for it was the only song he
knew.
"'My voice is gone,' thought the hunchback's companion. 'He'll beat me
again to-night; but it can't last long:
"Love and truth,
And joys of youth"'--
she sang, for that was the song she had learned; and it was not her
fault that it was inappropriate.
"But the ballad-singer's captivity was nearly at an end. When the
hunchback left her that evening to spend the sailor's penny with the
few others which she had earned, he swore that when he came back he
would make her sing louder than she had done all day. Her face showed
no emotion, less than it did when he saw it hours after, when beauty
and feeling seemed to have returned to it in the peace of death, when
he came back and found the cage empty, and that the long-prisoned
spirit had flown away to seek the face of love and truth indeed.
"But how about the thrush?
"The sailor had scarcely swallowed the wrath which the hunchback had
stirred in him, when his ear was caught by the song of the thrush above
him.
"'You sing uncommon well, pretty one,' he said, stopping and putting
his hat even farther back than usual to look up. He was one of those
good people who stop a dozen times in one street, and look at
everything as they go along; whereby you may see three times as much of
life as other folk, but it is a terrible temptation to spend money. It
was so in this instance. The sailor looked till his kindly eye
perceived that the bird was ill-cared for.
"'It should have a bit of sod, it _should_,' he said emphatically,
taking his hat off, and scratching his head again; 'and there's not a
crumb of food on board. Maybe, they don't understand the ways of birds
here. It would be a good turn to mention it.'
"With this charitable intention he entered the house, and when he left
it, his pocket was empty, and the thrush was carried tenderly in his
handkerchief.
"'The canary died last voyage,' he muttered apologetically to himself,
'and the money always does go somehow or other.'
"The sailor's hands were about three times as large and coarse as those
of the boy who had carried the thrush before, but they seemed to him
three times more light and tender--they were handy and kind, and this
goes farther than taper fingers.
"The thrush's new home was not in the narrow streets. It was in a small
cottage in a small garden at the back of the town. The canary's old
cage was comparatively roomy, and food, water, and fresh turf were
regularly supplied to him. He could see green leaves too. There was an
apple-tree in the garden, and two geraniums, a fuchsia, and a tea-rose
in the window. Near the tea-rose an old woman sat in the sunshine. She
was the sailor's mother, and looked very like a tidily-kept
window-plant herself. She had a little money of her own, which gave her
a certain dignity, and her son was very good to her; and so she dwelt
in considerable comfort, dividing her time chiefly between reading in
the big Bible, knitting socks for Jack, and raising cuttings in bottles
of water. She had heard of hothouses and forcing-frames, but she did
not think much of them. She believed a bottle of water to be the most
natural, because it was the oldest method she knew of, and she thought
no good came of new-fangled ways, and trying to outdo Nature.
"'Slow and sure is best,' she said, and stuck to her own system.
"'What's that, my dear?' she asked, when the sailor came in and held up
the handkerchief. He told her.
"'You're always a-laying out your money on something or other,' said
the old lady, who took the privilege of her years to be a little testy.
'What did you give for _that_?'
"'A shilling, ma'am.'
"'Tst! tst! tst!' said the old lady, disapprovingly.
"'Now, Mother, don't shake that cap of yours off your head,' said the
sailor. 'What's a shilling? If I hadn't spent it, I should have changed
it; and once change a shilling, and it all dribbles away in coppers,
and you get nothing for it. But spend it in the lump, and you get
something you want. That's what I say.'
"'_I_ want no more pets,' said the old lady, stiffly.
"'Well, you won't be troubled with this one long,' said her son; 'it'll
go with me, and that's soon enough.'
"Any allusion to his departure always melted the old lady, as Jack well
knew. She became tearful, and begged him to leave the thrush with her.
"'You know, my dear, I've always looked to your live things as if they
were Christians; and loved them too (unless it was that monkey that I
never _could_ do with!). Leave it with me, my dear. I'd never bother
myself with a bird on board ship, if I was you.'
"'That's because you've got a handsome son of your own, old lady,'
chuckled the sailor; 'I've neither chick nor child, ma'am, remember,
and a man must have something to look to. The bird'll go with me.'
"And so it came to pass that just when the thrush was becoming
domesticated, and almost happy at the cottage, one morning the sailor
brought him fresh turf and groundsel, besides his meal-cake, and took
the cage down. And the old woman kissed the wires, and bade the bird
good-bye, and blessed her son, and prayed Heaven to bring him safe home
again; and they went their way.
"The forecastle of a steam-ship (even of a big one) is a poor exchange
for a snug cottage to any one but a sailor. To Jack, the ship was home.
_He_ had never lived in a wood, and carolled in tree-tops. He preferred
blue to green, and pine masts to pine trees; and he smoked his pipe
very comfortably in the forecastle, whilst the ship rolled to and fro,
and swung the bird's cage above his head. To the thrush it was only an
imprisonment that grew worse as time went on. Each succeeding day made
him pine more bitterly for his native woods--for fresh air and green
leaves, and the rest and quiet, and sweet perfumes, and pleasant sounds
of country life. His turf dried up, his groundsel withered, and no more
could be got. He longed even to be back with the old woman--to see the
apple-tree, and the window-plants, and be still. The shudder of the
screw, the blasts of hot air from the engine and cook's galley, the
ceaseless jangling, clanging, pumping noises, and all the indescribable
smells which haunt a steam-ship, became more wearisome day by day. Even
when the cage was hung outside, the, sea breeze seemed to mock him with
its freshness. The rich blue of the waters gave him no pleasure, his
eyes failed with looking for green, the bitter, salt spray vexed him,
and the wind often chilled him to the bone, whilst the sun shone, and
icebergs gleamed upon the horizon.
"The sailor had been so kind a master, that the thrush had become
deeply attached to him, as birds will; and while at the cottage he had
scarcely fretted after his beloved wood. But with every hour of the
voyage, home-sickness came more strongly upon him, and his heart went
back to the nest, and the pine-top, and the old home. When one sleeps
soundly, it is seldom that one remembers one's dreams; but when one is
apt to be roused by an unexpected lurch of the ship, by the moan of a
fog-whistle, or the scream of an engine, one becomes a light sleeper,
and the visions of the night have a strange reality, and are easily
recalled. And now the thrush always dreamt of home.
"One day he was hung outside. It was not a very fine day, but he looked
drooping, and the pitying sailor brought him out, to get some air. His
heart was sore with home-sickness, and he watched the sea-birds
skimming up and down with envious eyes. It seemed all very well for
poor men, who hadn't so much as a wing to carry them over the water, to
build lumbering sea-nests, with bodies to float in the water like fish,
and wings of canvas to carry them along, and to help it out with noisy
steam-engines--and to endure it all. But for him, who could fly over a
hundred tree-tops before a man could climb to one, it was hard to swing
outside a ship, and to watch other birds use their wings, when his,
which quivered to fly homewards, could only flutter against the bars.
As he thought, a roll of the ship threw him forward, the wind shook the
wires of the cage, and loosened the fastening; and, when the vessel
righted, the cage-door swung slowly open.
"At this moment, a ray of sunshine streaked the deep blue water, and a
gleaming sea bird, which had been sitting like a tuft of foam upon a
wave, rose with outstretched pinions, and soared away. It was too much.
With one shrill pipe of hope, the thrush fluttered from his cage,
spread his wings, and followed him.
"When the sailor found that the wind was getting up, he came to take
the cage down, and then his grief was sore indeed.
"'The canary died last voyage,' he said, sadly. 'The cage was bought on
a Friday, and I knew ill luck would come of it. I said so to Mother;
but the old lady says there's no such thing as luck, and she's
Bible-learned, if ever a woman was. "That's very true," says I, "but
if I'd the money for another cage, I wouldn't use this;" and I never
will again. Poor, bird! it was a sweet singer.' And he turned his face
aside.
"'It may have the sense to come back,' said one of the crew. The sailor
scratched his head, and shook it sadly.
"'Noah's bird came back to him, when she found no rest,' he said, 'but
I don't think mine will, Tom.'
"He was right. The thrush returned no more. He did not know how wide
was the difference between his own strength and that of the bird he
followed. The sea-fowl cut the air with wings of tenfold power: he
swooped up and down, he stooped to fish, he rested on the ridges of the
dancing waves, and then, with one steady flight, he disappeared, and
the thrush was left alone. Other birds passed him, and flew about him,
and fished, and rocked upon the waters near him, but he held steadily
on. Ships passed him also, but too far away for him to rest upon;
whales spouted in the distance, and strange fowl screamed; but not a
familiar object broke the expanse of the cold sea. He did not know what
course he was taking. He hoped against hope that he was going home.
Although he was more faint and weary than he had ever yet been, he felt
no pain. The intensity of his hope to reach the old wood made
everything seem light; even at the last, when his wings were almost
powerless, he believed that they would bear him home, and was happy.
Already he seemed to rest upon the trees, the waters sounded in his
ears like the rustling of leaves, and the familiar scent of the
pine-tree seemed to him to come upon the breeze.
"In this he was not wrong. A country of pine-woods was near; and land
was in sight, though too far away for him to reach it now. Not home,
but yet a land of wondrous summer beauty; of woods, and flowers, and
sun-flecked leaves--of sunshine more glowing than he had ever known--of
larger ferns, and deeper mosses, and clearer skies--a land, of balmy
summer nights, where the stars shine brighter than with us, and where
fireflies appear and vanish, like stars of a lower firmament, amid the
trees. As the sun broke out, the scent of pines came strong upon the
land breeze. A strange land, but the thrush thought it was his own.
"'I smell woods,' he chirped faintly; 'I see the sun. This is home!'
"All round him, the noisy crests of the fresh waves seemed to carol the
song he could no longer sing--'Home, home! fresh water and green woods,
ambrosial sunshine and sun-flecked shade, chattering brooks and
rustling leaves, glade and sward and dell, lichens and cool mosses,
feathered ferns and flowers. Green leaves! green leaves! Summer!
summer! summer!'
"The slackened wings dropped, the dying eyes looked landward, and then
closed. But even as he fell, he believed himself sinking to rest on
Mother Earth's kindly bosom, and he did not know it, when the cold
waves buried him at sea."
"Oh, then, he _did_ die!" cried the children, who, though they were tired
of stories that end happily, yet, when they heard it, liked a sad ending
no better than other children do (in which, by the bye, we hold them to
be in the right, and can hardly forgive ourselves for chronicling this
"ower true tale").
"Yes," said the old man, "he died; but it is said that the sweet
dingle which was his home--forsaken by the nightingale--is regarded by
birds as men regard a haunted house; for that at still summer midnight,
when other thrushes sleep, a shadowy form, more like a skeleton leaf
than a living bird, swings upon the tall tree-tops where he sat of old,
and, rapt in a happy ecstasy, sings a song more sweet and joyous than
thrush ever sang by day."
"Have you heard it?" asked the children.
The old man nodded. But not another word would he say. The children,
however, forthwith began to lay plans for getting into the wood some
mid-summer night, to test with their own ears the truth of his story,
and to hear the spectre thrush's song. Whether the authorities
permitted the expedition, and if not, whether the young people baffled
their vigilance--whether they heard the song, and if so, whether they
understood it--we are not empowered to tell here.
* * * * *
CHRISTMAS CRACKERS.
A FANTASIA.
It was Christmas-eve in an old-fashioned country-house, where Christmas
was being kept with old-fashioned form and custom. It was getting late.
The candles swaggered in their sockets, and the yule log glowed
steadily like a red-hot coal.
"The fire has reached his heart," said the tutor: "he is warm all
through. How red he is! He shines with heat and hospitality like some
warm-hearted old gentleman when a convivial evening is pretty far
advanced. To-morrow he will be as cold and grey as the morning after a
festival, when the glasses are being washed up, and the host is
calculating his expenses. Yes! you know it is so;" and the tutor nodded
to the yule log as he spoke; and the log flared and crackled in return,
till the tutor's face shone like his own. He had no other means of
reply.
The tutor was grotesque-looking at any time. He was lank and meagre,
with a long body and limbs, and high shoulders. His face was
smooth-shaven, and his skin like old parchment stretched over high
cheek-bones and lantern jaws; but in their hollow sockets his eyes
gleamed with the changeful lustre of two precious gems. In the ruddy
firelight they were like rubies, and when he drew back into the shade
they glared green like the eyes of a cat. It must not be inferred from
the tutor's presence this evening that there were no Christmas holidays
in this house. They had begun some days before; and if the tutor had
had a home to go to, it is to be presumed that he would have gone.
As the candles got lower, and the log flared less often, weird lights
and shades, such as haunt the twilight, crept about the room. The
tutor's shadow, longer, lanker, and more grotesque than himself, mopped
and mowed upon the wall beside him. The snapdragon burnt blue, and as
the raisin-hunters stirred the flaming spirit, the ghastly light made
the tutor look so hideous that the widow's little boy was on the eve of
howling, and spilled the raisins he had just secured. (He did not like
putting his fingers into the flames, but he hovered near the more
adventurous school-boys and collected the raisins that were scattered
on the table by the hasty _grabs_ of braver hands.)
The widow was a relative of the house. She had married a Mr. Jones, and
having been during his life his devoted slave, had on his death
transferred her allegiance to his son. The late Mr. Jones was a small
man with a strong temper, a large appetite, and a taste for
drawing-room theatricals. So Mrs. Jones had called her son Macready;
"for," she said, "his poor papa would have made a fortune on the stage,
and I wish to commemorate his talents. Besides, Macready sounds better
with Jones than a commoner Christian name would do."
But his cousins called him MacGreedy.
"The apples of the enchanted garden were guarded by dragons. Many
knights went after them. One wished for the apples, but he did not like
to fight the dragons."