But the Child was eager to reach his friends and playfellows on the
sea-shore. Much as he loved the trees, and flowers, and delicate mosses,
and well as he understood their meek, kind, listening looks, he would
soon have grown weary of their mute, quiet ways: he longed for other
voices besides his own, and the rich varieties of higher life.
"Do you never wish to wander, and never long for change?" he said to
them one day. "I wish I could take you with me to see some of the
wonderful things there are in the world. It must be monotonous always to
look on the same patch of sky and the same stems and leaves! You must
not be grieved if I go."
But as he spoke a breeze shook the branches of the tree above him, and
gently parting them, let in a whole train of sunbeams on the mossy bank.
And the young fern leaves, and the tender green mosses, and the violets,
and all the flowers with the dew-drops on them, sparkled in the
sunshine, and waved to and fro in the breeze, and seemed to grow even as
he looked at them. Then the Child comprehended that every creature had
its own measure of gladness full, and tripped joyfully away. His little
white feet made music on the shingly path as he danced down the hill.
But when he reached the gleaming strip of sunny sand at the foot of the
rocks, he stepped more slowly and carefully, for all around him were his
playfellows, and he often found some of them in want of his help.
This morning the shore was strewn with many well known to him, and some
strange to him; for in the night the winds and waves had played rough
gambols together, and had greatly disturbed many of the peaceable little
dwellers in the deep.
The first thing he met was a Sea-anemone, stranded high on the beach,
folding all its pretty flower-leaves into itself, and making itself look
as ugly as it could. But the Child knew it well; and he gently laid his
hand on it to carry it into a safer place. The little red and green and
orange ball resented his interference, rolled itself a little on one
side, and tried to bury itself in the sand. The Child spoke to it in its
own language, and asked how it came there. The anemone replied by a
little grunt. The family were not remarkable for clear articulation, and
the Child could never get much out of them; but he met with no further
resistance as he placed his hand beneath it and gently carried it to a
favourite pool of his among the rocks. There he laid it down near the
edge, where the water was shallow, and in a few minutes it shot out all
its pretty feelers and rooted itself on the rock and expanded into a
floral crown--very petal striped with rose and fawn, every petal like a
little busy finger, tossing to and fro in search of food and in the
enjoyment of life. Thus the anemone thanked the Child, and from all its
sensitive points and its rayed lips came to him a soft chorus of sweet
vibrations of pleasure.
He could not listen long, but tripped back over the rocks to the beach,
treading softly over the leaves of the large brown sea-weeds, whilst
their air-bladders crackled cheerily under his feet; and on his way in
crossing a channel of sand, drifted up among the low rocks, he came
across a little crab, whose shy spasmodic movements so amused him that
he sat down on a large stone and laughed till the rocks rang again.
All the creatures always looked very grave and puzzled when the Child
laughed, and the small crab did not seem at all to like it, keeping his
large projecting eyes fixed on him, and trying to hide himself, as he
went, under the brown leaves, but still glaring from his retreat with an
expression of wounded dignity.
At length the Child recovered his speech and said, "Are you in
difficulties? Can I help you?"
The crab crept out of his hiding-place on being thus courteously
addressed, and planting his two fore legs round a pebble, looked up at
the Child, and opened his lips so wide that all his body seemed a mouth.
Then clearing his voice gravely, he said, "There is no living in the sea
in these times: the winds and waves are so inconsiderate and violent, I
don't know what will be the end of it. Yesterday morning I had found a
most convenient apartment, well plastered and furnished, so as to suit
me to perfection. I had spent hours in hunting for such an eligible
lodging, and congratulated myself on being at length settled for life:
when in an instant a large wave broke over me and dashed my house to
pieces on the shore. I hardly escaped with my life, and my nerves are so
shaken that I can scarcely think calmly--a most harassing position for a
crab of my standing."
"But," said the Child, "what do you mean by _finding_ your house?--most
of my friends here build their own."
"That is not my profession," said the crab rather conceitedly; "none of
our family were brought up to anything of the kind. Of course it is
necessary that some people should be masons and carpenters, but we have
all our work done for us."
"What do you do then?" asked the Child.
The crab looked a little embarrassed, but he was too well bred for this
to last, so he replied rather evasively, "We eat, and drink, and observe
the world; we travel, and occasionally fight, and criticise what other
people do. I assure you it is no idle life: so few people understand
their own business."
The Child did not altogether like the tone of the crab's conversation,
and he replied rather warmly,--
"I don't know what you mean. All my friends, the cockles, the whelks,
and the limpets, do their work a great deal better than I could; and I
love to watch them."
"Very likely," said the crab, in a cool tone, for he was accustomed to
good society; "the whelk family do indeed put their work out of hand in
a masterly way; in fact we generally employ them."
"What do they do for you?" asked the Child.
"They build very commodious little residences, quite suitable for people
who travel as much as we do, and then leave them to us."
"You live in empty whelk shells, then!" said the Child.
"We migrate from one such residence to another," replied the crab. "When
we outgrow one, we abandon it and hunt for another; and occasionally,
when we find a convenient one still tenanted, and cannot make the
creature within understand our wants, especially if he begins to talk
any nonsense about the rights of property and the claims of labour, we
turn him out."
"That is stealing," said the Child indignantly.
"Excuse me," said the crab, "we call it conquest. We are soldiers on our
own account--free companions. But I must be on my travels again.
To-morrow, if you will call, we shall no doubt be able to renew our
acquaintance under more agreeable circumstances."
And the Soldier-crab withdrew his long legs from the pebble, and marched
away with a braggadocio air among the sea-weeds.
"I do not call you a soldier," said the Child; "you fight for no one but
yourself. I call you a housebreaker and a thief;" and he rose with a
flushed face slowly, and went on his way, lost in thought until he
reached the little beach at the foot of the rocks. The sea had retreated
whilst he had been away, and the Child soon forgot his conversation with
the crab in watching the waves, dipping his feet in one, and then
running away from the next.
So he played until he was tired, and then looking round he saw a lump of
jelly stranded just beyond the reach of the tide.
It was clear as crystal, except a little purple colouring in rings at
the edge. When the Child touched it with his foot it made a slight
plaintive moan, and murmured, "I am alive; be gentle to me."
"How could I know that?" said the Child; "I would not hurt you for the
world; I thought you were only a bit of something."
"If you had only seen me last evening," sighed the Medusa. "We were
sailing, a fleet of us, far out in the deep sea; we thought it was to be
calm, and we came up from the dark depths, to bask in the sunshine. And
now I am separated from all my companions, and left to die here."
"How did you come here?" said the Child kindly; "may you not return by
the same way?"
"How can I tell how I came here?" sighed the Medusa; "there was
darkness, and thunder, and confusion,--waves hurling one another about,
until sea and sky were all mixed, and the surface was as dark as the
caves below. And I was like a bubble on the breakers, until one dashed
me in beyond the reach of the others, and I am left here to die."
"You shall not die," said the Child. And gently taking up the shapeless
mass in both his little hands, he carried it to the edge of a rock,
which rose perpendicularly out of a deep creek, and there he threw it
into the sea.
The Medusa stretched her crystal body joyously,--the receding waves bore
her out to sea before she could thank the Child; but he rejoiced in her
happiness, and turned back with a light heart to rest in his own little
dwelling. For the sun was approaching the west, and crimson rays began
to tint the upper surfaces of the waves, while their shadows became blue
and dark. And as he climbed the little path, and rested on his little
bed that night, he thought, "How glorious it must be far out in the deep
sea!"