"The poet may tread earth sadly,
Yet is he dreamland's king;
And the fays, at his bidding, gladly
Visions of beauty bring."
Mortimer Collins.
Scene: A green hill or knoll rising with a gentle sweep from the woods
near Grayling House, on one side gigantic elm trees, with rooks busy
nest-making. On the other, at the rock foot, the dark deep loch.
Behind the hill, as far as the eye can see, a forest dotted with
spring-green larches and dark waving pines; blue mountains beyond, and a
bright sun shining down on all from a sky of cloudless blue.
It is early morning, but those rooks have been at it long before the
beams of the rising sun capped the hills with crimson. There are many
other voices in the woods; indeed, every tree is alive with song, but
you would have to walk a long distance into the forest before you could
listen with pleasure to either the merle or the mavis, so loud-voiced
are those rooks with their everlasting but senseless song of "Caw--caw--
caw."
But listen!--if indeed it be possible to listen to anything--there is
evidently a merry party coming towards the mound here, from the
direction of Grayling House.
There is a manly voice singing, and there is the merry laughter of
children, with every now and then the sharp ringing bark of a collie, or
the deeper bay of a hound in the woods.
And now they burst into view. At the head of the procession, hatchet in
hand, marches Captain Lyle himself, flanked on the right by Leonard, on
the left by Effie. Behind them come men carrying baskets of tools and
spades and shovels, and bringing up the rear, and limping somewhat, is
old Peter himself.
What are they all doing here? Why, they are going to complete the
building of the Miniature Menagerie. And if you now look behind you,
and to the top of the little green hill, you will notice rising
therefrom a structure of such fairy-like dimensions, but of such grace
and beauty withal, that no one could have been blamed for mistaking it
for the palace of some elfin king.
Externally, and seen from a distance, it looked already complete, but a
closer inspection showed that the rooms were all unfurnished as yet, and
the place void of tenants.
There was much to do, but there was a merry, busy crew to do it, and
what with shouting and what with talking and singing, I must say that if
the din at the building of the Tower of Babel was anything in comparison
to this, it must have been very great indeed.
I do not know that Effie did much to assist--assist the work, I mean,
for she _did_ add to the din most considerably--but Leonard proved an
able lieutenant in running here and there, conveying his father's
commands, and seeing that they were executed promptly.
Well, everybody worked, and worked, and _worked_, and not on this
particular day only, but for many days, for it happened to be a school
holiday, and so, by-and-bye, everything was completed, even to the
satisfaction of Captain Lyle himself, who, being a soldier, was very
particular indeed.
And after everything was done and finished, and the trees and flowers in
the grounds that surrounded Castle Beautiful had nothing to do but to
grow, then the animals and pets were taken to this beautiful home, and
duly installed therein.
And old Peter the butler, whose labours at the house itself were really
not worth speaking about, he being kept as a kind of human heirloom and
nothing else, was appointed custodian of the castle. For Peter, being
so very old, and having been always in the country, in the woods and in
the wilds, since the days of his boyhood, not only knew a deal about
every kind of animal, but was also fond of all things living. It had
often been remarked of Peter by the other servants that he would, if in
ever so great a hurry, step on one side rather than trample a garden
worm on the footpath.
"Hae!" he would say sometimes when he found one of these on the gravel,
"whaur are gaun ye crawling ferlie? Whaur are ye hurryin' to sae fast?
I'll put you out of harm's way at the risk o' even displeasing ye."
Then he would lift it, and gently deposit it on the grass.
On a shelf in one of the rooms lay a note-book, and in this book Captain
Lyle had written--so plainly that even Peter could see to read it
without those immense spectacles he used to wear when droning over the
Good Book of an evening to the servants--all that it was necessary to
know about the feeding and comfort of the poor wee animals who lived in
Castle Beautiful. And Leonard and Effie, being Scotch, had learned to
read very early, and soon could tell by heart everything in the book.
Leonard had a very high sense of what duty meant, and even Effie knew
that if we keep animals to minister to our pleasure, we ought to do our
best to make them as happy as the summer's day is long.
Well, let us take a glance at Castle Beautiful and the Menagerie three
months after that busy, bright spring morning I have just described.
Leonard and Effie come with us to answer questions and explain things in
general, and old Peter goes hobbling on in front, in a great hurry,
though with little speed, to open the gates for us.
The palisade that surrounds the hill there is quite a rustic one, and so
is the gate that opens through it. Even the bark has been left on the
branches that compose it.
Once through this gate--and mind you, old Peter takes good care to lock
it behind him--we find ourselves in quite a little shrubbery, though
laid down with exquisite taste and without any overcrowding. And
upwards, through the grass and miniature trees, the path goes winding
and zig-zig-zagging till it lands us on the flat roof of the hill, in
front of the little palace.
We observe that the gravel on the path, and all round the palace, as we
may well call it, is as white as snow. It is a mixture of shells and
sea sand, brought all the way from the beach at the mouth of the Tweed,
and being so white, it looks in charming contrast to the greenery of
trees and grass.
But what strikes a grown-up person most here, is that everything about
him is in miniature, dwarfed, as it were; the very bushes and shrubs
have the appearance of being old, and yet they are excessively small.
Here, for example, is a little forest of pine trees and larches which,
as far as shape goes, might be a hundred years old, and here again is a
thicket of spruce, so ancient looking, yet so tiny, that if pigeons flew
about in it no bigger than humble-bees, we would not be a bit
astonished, and if, flitting from bough to bough of these dwarfed elms
and oaks, we saw thrushes and blackbirds not a whit larger than
blue-bottle flies, we should not raise our brows in wonder.
Again, when we look around us at the tiny rockeries and flower beds and
the Liliputian fountains, and then glance at the fairy-like palace
itself, why, we--that is, we grown-up folks--begin to think we are
giants and ogres, or that all we see around us is due to some kind of
enchantment. If a regiment of real fairies came trooping out of the
miniature palace, we would not be rude enough to look as if there were
anything particularly strange in the matter.
But behold, Peter, who does look tall amid such surroundings, opens the
hall door of the Castle, and out step Don Caesar de Bazan and the Hon.
Lady Purr-a-meow.
Don Caesar shakes hands with everybody all round, and her ladyship does
the same. The Don is a poodle with his hair cut in the most fantastic
Frenchified fashion, and her Ladyship is a cat of the tabby persuasion,
who condescends to accept bed and board at Castle Beautiful. Don Caesar
and Lady Purr-a-meow go off for a scamper round the hill and through the
miniature woods, and Peter, preceded by Leonard and Effie, enters the
porch, and we follow, feeling all the while as big as giants. The
verandah is just under the tower where the pigeons dwell, and a couple
of tame jackdaws have built a nest and brought out young.
And the very first or ante-room we reach is the private apartment of Don
Caesar and Lady Purr-a-meow. I really ought to have put Lady P. before
Don C. in that last sentence of mine, for she alone rules king and
priest in this charming little room.
Of course Don Caesar has a couch in one corner, in which he is
graciously permitted to sleep at night, or enjoy a siesta during the
day. Lady Purr-a-meow does not object to that, and she even allows him
to have his meals here so long as he behaves himself. She does not
object either to have a game at romps with Don Caesar when _she_ has a
mind to; I emphasise the _she_ because it makes all the difference in
the world if Don Caesar himself proposes the game. She whacks him at
once, and sends him to bed, and she knows exactly all his tender points,
and where a claw hurts most, on his nose, for example, or on his
closely-shaven loins. She whacks him if he goes too near her dish, she
whacks him if he barks, and sometimes whacks him because he doesn't.
She whacks him if he comes too near to the window, and whacks him if he
stops too far away from it. She whacks him sometimes for looking at
her. If he doesn't look at her she says he is sulky, and whacks him for
that; she whacks him for fun and for exercise, and to show her
authority, so that, upon the whole, Don Caesar de Bazan gets a good deal
more whacking than he deserves.
In this room is Leonard's and Effie's library of old-fashioned
picture-books, and many toys, and a little couch near the
nicely-curtained window, on which it is delightful to recline on a
lovely summer evening and read while dreamy, old-fashioned music is
being played by a huge musical box that stands on a table, and while a
breeze, laden with the odours of the woods and the wild flowers, is
stealing in at the open window, and toying with the crimson curtains.
This window opens right on the lawn, that is, on the back lawn, and here
a strange sight may be seen--namely, half a score of snow-white,
smutty-nosed, garnet-eyed Himalayan rabbits, brought home first by a
sailor uncle, and the same number of daft-looking little piebald guinea
pigs. These have houses outside, and a monstrous owl called Tom is
watching them half asleep from his cage near a window, and thinking how
nice one or two of them would be to eat.
But we re-enter the ante-room through the casement window, and pass on
into a kind of hall lighted from the roof.
In this place there are so many pets of different kinds that it is
impossible to know which to admire or wonder at first. This hall
communicates with another room with a larger window, which looks over
the precipice right down into the lake, where lives Joe the monster
pike, and the inmates of both rooms are free to scamper or fly--for here
we have both fur and feathers--from one to the other.
In these rooms are perches and cages and pens, and shelves and nests and
comfortable cosy corners of every description, and all kinds of seed and
food dishes, and abundance of water and an allowance of milk; and
everything--thanks to the little owners, and to worthy old Peter--is as
clean and sweet as though nothing dwelt in the rooms. This is the home
_par excellence_ of the happy family. The secret is, that every
creature must be young when placed therein, so that they soon come to
know that though they may play together, they must study each other's
feelings, and neither hurt each other nor be rude to one another.
Right in the centre of the square room is a fountain playing, the spray
falling down upon a charming little rockery in the middle of a stone
basin. The fountain can be turned on at the will of the owner, and
whenever it plays the birds take advantage of it, and fly across and
across through the spray, and so enjoy a shower bath. But the white
rats do not care for a bath, and when the birds, thoroughly wet and
thoroughly tired of the sport, sit down on a perch to preen their
draggled feathers, the cosy white rats in their garments of ermine look
up at them with crimson eyes, in which dwells a kind of pity, and seem
to say, "We really wouldn't be you for all the world."
What other pets are there in this happy family, did you ask? Well,
there are pet pigmy pigeons, and pet kittens, a tame duck, who is
greatly bullied, a sea-gull who talks like a Christian, half-a-dozen
starlings, who inquire into everything, and a jackdaw who is never out
of mischief, and whom Effie has serious thoughts of sending into exile.
As soon as Leonard and she appear they are surrounded, and the din is
for a time indescribable. The dwarf or pigmy pigeons hover round them
and alight on their shoulders and hands; the kittens chase the rats, who
squeak, and pretend to be terribly afraid; the sea-gull struts about
crying, "Oh! you pretty, pretty, pretties;" the jackdaw whistles "Duncan
Grey;" all the starlings start singing at once; and the idiotic duck
can't think of anything better to do than stand flapping his wings in a
corner and crying, "What, what, what, what!"
We tear ourselves away from this happy family at last, and make tracks
for the bird rooms, or aviaries. One room is devoted to British, the
other to foreign birds, all nicely assorted and sized, so that they live
in the utmost unison. There are soft-billed birds and hard-billed
birds, so there are both seeds and mash to suit their palates. Here
again we have fountains, one in each aviary, and these, when playing,
are a source of never-ending delight.
When the sun is shining upon the foreign aviary, what a sight it is to
see those birds, in all their brilliancy of colour and beauty, flitting
from bough to bough in their bonnie home; but if you want music you must
enter the adjoining room, where the birds of Britain dwell. Gaudy their
plumage may not be but, oh! their voices are very sweet.
All round both these rooms grow trailing plants, that hang over the
aviaries like great green plumes, and when night falls and the Chinese
lanterns are lit, and the fountains all playing, the whole place is
indeed like a fairy palace.
But it is summer on the occasion of this visit of ours, the grass is
green, and flowers are everywhere out of doors, in beds and rockeries,
peeping through the moss, hiding under trees, and covering every porch
and verandah with masses of foliage and lovely flowers.
Book 1--CHAPTER FOUR.