The house was thatched and whitewashed, and English was written on it
and on every foot of ground round it. A furze bush had been planted by
the door. Vertical oak palings were the fence, with a five-barred gate
in the middle of them. From the little plantation all the magnificent
trees and shrubs of Australia had been excluded, and oak and ash reigned
safe from overtowering rivals. They passed to the back of the house, and
there George’s countenance fell a little, for on the oval grass-plot and
gravel-walk he found from thirty to forty rough fellows, most of them
diggers.
[Illustration: CHARLES READE]
“Ah, well,” said he, on reflection, “we could not expect to have it all
to ourselves, and indeed it would be a sin to wish it, you know. Now,
Tom, come this way; here it is, here it is--there!” Tom looked up, and
in a gigantic cage was a light brown bird.
He was utterly confounded. “What, is it _this_ we came twelve miles to
see?”
“Ay! and twice twelve wouldn’t have been much to me.”
“Well, but what is the lark you talked of?”
“This is it!”
“This? This is a bird.”
“Well, and isn’t a lark a bird?”
“Oh, ay, I see! ha! ha! ha! ha!”
Robinson’s merriment was interrupted by a harsh remonstrance from
several of the diggers, who were all from the other end of the camp.
“Hold your cackle,” cried one, “he is going to sing;” and the whole
party had their eyes turned with expectation towards the bird.
Like most singers, he kept them waiting a bit. But at last, just at
noon, when the mistress of the house had warranted him to sing, the
little feathered exile began, as it were, to tune his pipes. The savage
men gathered round the cage that moment, and amidst a dead stillness the
bird uttered some very uncertain chirps, but after a while he seemed to
revive his memories, to call his ancient cadences back to him one by
one, and to string them together.
And then the same sun that had warmed his little heart at home came
glowing down on him here, and he gave music back for it more and more,
till at last--amidst breathless silence and glistening eyes of the rough
diggers hanging on his voice--out burst in that distant land his English
song.
It swelled from his little throat and gushed from him with thrilling
force and plenty, and every time he checked his song to think of its
theme, the green meadows, the quiet stealing streams, the clover he
first soared from and the spring he sang so well, a loud sigh from many
a rough bosom, many a wild and wicked heart, told how tight the
listeners had held their breath to hear him. And, when he swelled with
song again, and poured with all his soul the green meadows, the quiet
brooks, the honey-clover, and the English spring, the rugged mouths
opened and so stayed, and the shaggy lips trembled, and more than one
drop trickled from fierce unbridled hearts down bronzed and rugged
cheeks.
Home! sweet home!
And these shaggy men, full of oaths and strife and cupidity, had once
been white-headed boys, and had strolled about the English fields with
little sisters and little brothers, and seen the lark rise, and heard
him sing this very song. The little playmates lay in the churchyard, and
they were full of oaths, and drink, and riot, and remorses; but no note
was changed in this immortal song. And so, for a moment or two, years of
vice rolled away like a dark cloud from the memory, and the past shone
out in the sunshine; they came back, bright as the immortal notes that
had lighted them, those faded pictures and those fleeted days; the
cottage, the old mother’s tears, when he left her without one grain of
sorrow; the village church and its simple chimes; the clover field hard
by in which he lay and gambolled, while the lark praised God overhead;
the chubby playmates that never grew to be wicked; the sweet hours of
youth and innocence, and home!
“What will you take for him, mistress? I will give you five pounds for
him!”
“No! no! I won’t take five pounds for my bird!”
“Of course she won’t,” cried another, “she wouldn’t be such a flat.
Here, missus,” cried he, “I’ll give you that for him,” and he extended a
brown hand with at least thirty new sovereigns glittering in it.
The woman trembled; she and her husband were just emerging from poverty
after a hard fight.
“Oh!” she cried, “it is a shame to tempt a poor woman with so much gold.
We had six brought over, and all died on the way but this one!” and she
threw her white apron over her head, not to see the glittering bribe.
“Bother you, put the money up and don’t tempt the woman,” was the cry.
Another added, “Why, you fool, it wouldn’t live a week if you had it,”
and they all abused the man; but the woman turned to him kindly, and
said:--
“You come to me every Sunday, and he shall sing to you. You will get
more pleasure from him so,” said she sweetly, “than if he was always by
you.”
“So I shall, old girl,” replied the rough, in a friendly tone.
George stayed till the lark gave up singing altogether, and then he
said: “Now, I’m off. I don’t want to hear bad language after that: let
us take the lark’s chirp home to bed with us.” And they made off; and
true it was, the pure strains dwelt upon their spirits, and refreshed
and purified these sojourners in an evil place.
--CHARLES READE.
* * * * *
A good example is the best sermon.