"YOU MUST HAVE A NAME, MY LOVELY FLOWER."
Hitherto, continued Shireen, shifting her position on the footstool to
one of greater comfort, hitherto, my children, the life of brother and
myself had been all indoors. We knew of no other world than that
bounded by the four walls of the room around us, and it never occurred
to me to wonder where our lion-like father obtained the birds which he
never forgot to bring mother daily.
_A propos_ of Shireen's father bringing the mother pussy the birds, I
have a little anecdote to tell that is not without its humorous side.
Some years ago I possessed a very large and handsome half-Persian
white Tom, whom the children called Jujube. This cat, being allowed
to roam the world at the freedom of his own will, formed an attachment
with a neighbour's lady-cat, and married her. I was not invited to
the marriage, so do not know when it took place, nor what speeches
were made at the wedding-breakfast. However, in course of time, Mrs
G--'s cat was about to have kittens, and, not having any knowledge of
how cats should be treated under such circumstances, she rather
cruelly turned her out of doors. It happened at this time that Mrs
G--had also twenty-one young chickens. And now they began to
disappear at the rate of one every day, and so on for nineteen days.
Her cat had also disappeared, and could not be found. But on the
nineteenth day the mystery was explained, for walking in my orchard I
happened to look between two tall hedges, and there, on a nest of dry
leaves was the mother cat, with five beautiful kittens. Poor Ju had
brought her here, had made the warm nest for her, and gone every day
back to her old home and brought her a chicken. Ju had evidently
reasoned that although Mrs G--had turned her out, she ought to be
well-fed at the expense of her mistress. Hence, the robbery of the
chicken-roost.
He did not come in through the curtained doorway that led out into the
orangery with its fountains and its flowers, but leapt down from a
window that was too high for us to reach.
One day, the door leading into the garden was left open, and mother,
discovering this, determined to take us out.
If I should live to be as old as Chammy yonder, my children, I shall
never forget that morning. We followed mother timidly, fearfully, and
on rather shaky legs I must admit, for we were not yet very strong.
And every time a leaf fell, or went fluttering past us we started and
trembled, nay, I am not sure we did not even start at our own shadows in
the strong sunlight.
We gathered a little more confidence at last, but everything was so new
and so strange and so unaccountable that it seemed like walking in a
dream. I looked up for a moment at the sun, but quickly withdrew my
gaze; then all was suddenly dark around me. I thought the earth had
opened and swallowed us all up, and mewed in terror. But things soon
became light once more, mother licked the top of my head, and on we
went, now with more confidence.
There were birds singing here, and flitting to and fro through the spray
of the gurgling fountains; light and colour and beauty were everywhere.
Then the air was strong and fresh and balmy, and, oh, so delightfully
warm, that we soon felt perfectly at home, and bold enough even to chase
the fluttering leaves.
But for all this we would not venture far away from mother. And when at
last we were tired of romping, and our beautiful mother went trotting
back into the room again, we were all glad enough to follow. What with
the exceeding brightness of the sun out of doors, we could not see
anything at all when we went inside. Night seemed to have descended and
enveloped us all in its darksome folds. But mother, wiser than we, led
us back to our cushion, and no sooner did we lie down than we fell into
a sound and dreamless slumber.
So ended our first outing.
It became a regular thing now, however, this walk in the garden, and
seeing we enjoyed it so much, our mistress and queen, whom the tall,
black, red-eyed savage called Beebee, took us out to revel among the
sunshine and the flowers every day; and every day brother and I seemed
to grow stronger and bigger.
I began to love Beebee very much too, and it was she who named me
Shireen.
Yes, Warlock, it is a strange name, and so would yours appear to the
people of Persia.
But one day, Beebee took me on her lap, and told me why she had named me
Shireen. "You must have a name, my lovely flower," she said, in her
sweet child voice, "so it shall be Shireen. For know ye, that this was
the name held by the wife of a very great king and lord of Persia, who
lived ages and ages and ages ago, when this lovely land was even greater
than it is now."
I fear, my children, that I did not pay very much heed to all Beebee was
telling me, for I was very much taken up with a string of pearls and
rubies that she wore around her beautiful arm just above the elbow, and
all the time she was speaking, I was chewing at it. But mother listened
and told me the tale of the Queen Shireen over again when we were all by
ourselves.
"I remember it," said a voice which wasn't Warlock's. It was a voice
that seemed to come from the clouds, and a strange, sepulchral tone it
had. "Yes, I remember it. Just wait till I get down the chimney."
To say that every member of that circle of old friends round the fire
was startled would be a poor way of describing the general
consternation.
A strange voice coming down the chimney! A weird, sepulchral voice!
And the owner of that voice was going to follow it. He, she, or it, was
coming down the chimney!
Would the lights burn blue when the ghostly thing--the dread apparition
appeared?
"Eh? eh?" cried the starling. "What is it? What is it? Tse, tse,
tse!" [These were favourite expressions of my starling.]
Tabby's hair stood on end from tail to crown. Vee-Vee's hair would have
followed suit, only a Pomeranian's hair is always on end, and fright
even couldn't fix it a bit higher. Shireen herself, being slightly
imbued with superstition, confessed afterwards that she felt a trifle
uneasy as she gazed at the chimney and waited.
The only really brave individual in the whole circle was Warlock. There
was nothing belonging to this world, or even to a much worse world than
ours, that could have frightened Warlock. So he sprang up, faced the
fire, and barked.
"Don't be alarmed, any of you," said the voice in the chimney. "It's
only me. I'm coming down to tell you the story of Shireen, Queen of
Persia. Bless you, I remember her. It's only a matter of a thousand
and a half years--"
Here the creature was seized apparently with a fit of coughing, and next
moment he, she, or it, landed all in a heap close to Shireen's
footstool.
It was only Chammy after all, and everybody felt so relieved.
"I daresay," he explained, "I've changed colour a bit. Nothing unusual
in a chameleon changing colour, is there, Shireen, my furry dear?"
"No, Chammy, and you really have changed colour. Why, you are as black
as a sweep. Whatever made you creep up the chimney?"
I may observe here, parenthetically, that Chammy was sometimes found in
the queerest places. You see, he had the run of the room, and made
strange use of it at times.
Once, for example, he disappeared for a whole week, and was found at
last hiding behind a large cobweb in Colonel Clarkson's study. The
Colonel was a humane sort of man, you must know, and this particular
cobweb belonged to his pet spider, and was never touched. Oh, no,
Chammy had not eaten the spider; Chammy knew better than that. The fact
is, he had been studying that pet spider for weeks perhaps before he
carried his scheme into execution.
I notice he must have said to himself, "That that big spider never wants
plenty of flies, and that she repairs her web, after it has been broken
by a blue-bottle fly, overnight, and has it nice and new and fresh next
morning fit for another day's sport. Well, why should she have all the
blue-bottles? The blue-bottles are as much mine as hers. Now, _I_
can't build a web and catch them, but I can sit snugly enough near hers,
and when a blue-bottle comes I can just touch him off. That sort of
life will suit me far better than catching my own flies, for I'm not so
young as I used to be a thousand years ago."
Another time Chammy had been away a whole month, after partaking of
about five-and-twenty mealworms. The Colonel felt sure he would never
see his droll favourite again; but one day he told the servant to put a
little fire in his study, and half an hour after that, Chammy was found
sitting on the fender, holding up his fingers and palms to woo the
welcome blaze.
In the sweet summer-time, Chammy was taken out of doors and allowed to
crawl on a grizzled old apple tree that grew near to the study window.
This used to please Chammy very much, and he stalked flies with unerring
skill, and had plenty of exercise at the same time. The strange point
of the story is this: the tree was for the most part grey and gnarled,
so was Chammy, and a fly would often alight right in front of him. Out
would go Chammy's tongue, slowly and steadily at first, then--pop! and
the fly would wonder where in all the world he had got to. But there
were large patches of green moss on the apple tree, and Chammy dearly
loved these because they were warm and soft for his feet; but when
resting on one, he took the precaution to change colour to a beautiful
sea-green, and so the flies got licked in just the same. Well, one
evening, when Colonel Clarkson went to fetch Chammy in, he couldn't find
him high nor low; he looked on the grey and gnarled parts of the tree,
and he carefully examined the patches of moss, and he even focussed his
lorgnettes and scanned the tree up and down; but no Chammy was to be
seen, green or grey. So the Colonel put up his glasses with a sigh,
saying to himself, "Some vagrant cat has no doubt taken my poor pet
away."
Weeks flew by, and one evening while the kindly old soldier sat alone
with his wife in the drawing-room, both very still, because they were
reading and the children were away in the woods, lo! the cottage piano
in the corner suddenly began to play.
Colonel Clarkson looked at his wife and his wife looked at the Colonel.
Both, I think, were a little frightened, for when they glanced towards
the piano there was nobody there.
But the ghostly music continued. It was strange, it was unaccountable
and wonderful! The music was all on the descending scale, and chords
were struck chiefly fifths. But the keys of the piano did not move, and
the notes sounded far away. Presently the performance was concluded
with a series of groans emitted by the bass strings.
"I have it," the Colonel cried, "it is Chammy. Dear old Chammy."
Me jumped up and opened the instrument wide, and there sure enough was
the chameleon. He had been asleep in there for three weeks or more, and
had awakened hungry and lively--poor Chammy.
"Whatever made you get up the chimney, Chammy?" said Shireen again.
"Just to find a cosy corner," replied the chameleon, "for lor', bless
your pretty face, Shireen, now that the days are getting shorter, my
poor old toes do be that wondrous cold sometimes, you wouldn't believe."
"But you wanted to hear the story of Queen Shireen, didn't you?"
"Yes, Chammy, if you won't take long to tell it."
"Oh, not more'n a hundred years or so. Time is nothing to me, you
know."
But time was a good deal to these old friends around the fire, so it
ended after all in Chammy climbing up into his perch again, and
apparently going to sleep there, with his droll eyes open, and Shireen
herself having to tell the story.