CHAPTER IV.

“Returning from the Hall, the old man had slipped upon a bit of ice, and

lay stunned in the snow.

“Patty began to cry. ‘I think he’s dead,’ she sobbed.

“‘He is so very old, I don’t wonder,’ I murmured; ‘but perhaps he’s not.

I’ll fetch father.’

“My father and Kitty were soon on the spot. Kitty was as strong as a

man; and they carried Father Christmas between them into the kitchen.

There he quickly revived.

“I must do Kitty the justice to say that she did not utter a word of

complaint at this disturbance of her labors; and that she drew the old

man’s chair close up to the oven with her own hand. She was so much

affected by the behavior of his dog, that she admitted him even to the

hearth; on which puss, being acute enough to see how matters stood, lay

down with her back so close to the spaniel’s that Kitty could not expel

one without kicking both.

“For our parts, we felt sadly anxious about the tree; otherwise we could

have wished for no better treat than to sit at Kitty’s round table

taking tea with Father Christmas. Our usual fare of thick bread and

treacle was to-night exchanged for a delicious variety of cakes, which

were none the worse to us for being ‘tasters and wasters’—that is,

little bits of dough, or shortbread, put in to try the state of the

oven, and certain cakes that had got broken or burnt in the baking.

“Well, there we sat, helping Old Father Christmas to tea and cake, and

wondering in our hearts what could have become of the tree. But you see,

young people, when I was a child parents were stricter than they are

now. Even before Kitty died (and she has been dead many a long year)

there was a change, and she said that ‘children got to think anything

became them.’ I think we were taught more honest shame about certain

things than I often see in little boys and girls now. We were ashamed of

boasting, or being greedy, or selfish; we were ashamed of asking for

anything that was not offered to us, and of interrupting grown-up

people, or talking about ourselves. Why, papas and mammas now-a-days

seem quite proud to let their friends see how bold and greedy and

talkative their children can be! A lady said to me the other day, ‘You

wouldn’t believe, Mr. Garbel, how forward dear little Harry is for his

age. He has his word in everything, and is not a bit shy; and his papa

never comes home from town but Harry runs to ask if he’s brought him a

present. Papa says he’ll be the ruin of him!’

“‘Madam,’ said I, ‘even without your word for it, I am quite aware that

your child is forward. He is forward and greedy and intrusive, as you

justly point out, and I wish you joy of him when those qualities are

fully developed. I think his father’s fears are well founded.’

“But, bless me! now-a-days, it’s ‘Come and tell Mr. Smith what a fine

boy you are, and how many houses you can build with your bricks,’ or,

‘The dear child wants everything he sees,’ or ‘Little pet never lets

mamma alone for a minute; does she, love?’ But in my young days it was,

‘Self-praise is no recommendation’ (as Kitty used to tell me), or,

‘You’re knocking too hard at No. One’ (as my father said when we talked

about ourselves), or, ‘Little boys should be seen but not heard’ (as a

rule of conduct ‘in company’), or ‘Don’t ask for what you want, but take

what’s given you, and be thankful.’

“And so you see, young people, Patty and I felt a delicacy in asking Old

Father Christmas about the tree. It was not till we had had tea three

times round, with tasters and wasters to match, that Patty said very

gently, ‘It’s quite dark now.’ And then she heaved a deep sigh.

“Burning anxiety overcame me. I leaned towards Father Christmas, and

shouted—I had found out that it was needful to shout,—

“‘I suppose the candles are on the tree now?’

“‘Just about putting of ’em on,’ said Father Christmas.

“‘And the presents, too?’ said Patty.

“‘Aye, aye, _to_ be sure,’ said Father Christmas, and he smiled

delightfully.

“I was thinking what farther questions I might venture upon, when he

pushed his cup towards Patty, saying, ‘Since you are so pressing, miss,

I’ll take another dish.’

“And Kitty, swooping on us from the oven, cried ‘Make yourself at home,

sir; there’s more where these came from. Make a long arm, Miss Patty,

and hand them cakes.’

“So we had to devote ourselves to the duties of the table; and Patty,

holding the lid with one hand and pouring with the other, supplied

Father Christmas’s wants with a heavy heart.

“At last he was satisfied. I said grace, during which he stood, and

indeed he stood for some time afterwards with his eyes shut—I fancy

under the impression that I was still speaking. He had just said a

fervent ‘Amen,’ and reseated himself, when my father put his head into

the kitchen, and made this remarkable statement,—

“‘Old Father Christmas has sent a tree to the young people.’

“Patty and I uttered a cry of delight, and we forthwith danced round the

old man, saying, ‘Oh, how nice! Oh, how kind of you!’ which I think must

have bewildered him, but he only smiled and nodded.

“‘Come along,’ said my father, ‘Come children. Come Reuben. Come Kitty.’

“And he went into the parlor, and we all followed him.

“My godmother’s picture of a Christmas-tree was very pretty; and the

flames of the candles were so naturally done in red and yellow, that I

always wondered that they did not shine at night. But the picture was

nothing to the reality. We had been sitting almost in the dark, for, as

Kitty said, ‘Firelight was quite enough to burn at meal-times.’ And when

the parlor door was thrown open, and the tree, with lighted tapers on

all the branches, burst upon our view, the blaze was dazzling, and threw

such a glory round the little gifts, and the bags of colored muslin,

with acid drops and pink rose drops and comfits inside, as I shall never

forget. We all got something; and Patty and I, at any rate, believed

that the things came from the stores of Old Father Christmas. We were

not undeceived even by his gratefully accepting a bundle of old clothes

which had been hastily put together to form his present.

“We were all very happy; even Kitty, I think, though she kept her

sleeves rolled up, and seemed rather to grudge enjoying herself (a weak

point in some energetic characters). She went back to her oven before

the lights were out and the angel on the top of the tree taken down. She

locked up her present (a little work-box) at once. She often showed it

off afterwards, but it was kept in the same bit of tissue paper till she

died. Our presents certainly did not last so long!

“The old man died about a week afterwards, so we never made his

acquaintance as a common personage. When he was buried, his little dog

came to us. I suppose he remembered the hospitality he had received.

Patty adopted him, and he was very faithful. Puss always looked on him

with favor. I hoped during our rambles together in the following summer

that he would lead us at last to the cave where Christmas-trees are

dressed. But he never did.

“Our parents often spoke of his late master as ‘old Reuben,’ but

children are not easily disabused of a favorite fancy, and in Patty’s

thoughts and in mine the old man was long gratefully remembered as Old

Father Christmas.”

BENJY IN BEASTLAND.

A BAD BOY.

Benjy was a bad boy. His name was Benjamin, but he was always called

Benjy. He looked like something ending in jy or gy, or rather dgy, such

as _podgy_. Indeed he was podgy, and moreover smudgy, having that

cloudy, slovenly look (like a slate _smudged_ instead of washed) which

is characteristic of people whose morning toilet is not so thorough as

it should be.

Boys are very nice creatures. Far be it from us to think, with some

people, that they are nuisances to be endured as best may be till they

develop into men. An intelligent and modest boy is one of the most

charming of companions. As to an obliging boy (that somewhat rare but

not extinct animal), there is hardly a limit to his powers of

usefulness; or anything—from emigrating to a desert island to cleaning

the kitchen clock—that one would not feel justified in undertaking with

his assistance, and free access to his pocket stores.

Then boys’ wholesale powers of accumulation and destruction render their

dens convenient storehouses of generally useless and particularly useful

lumber. If you want string or wire, or bottles or flower-pots, or a

bird-cage, or an odd glove or shoe, or anything of any kind to patch up

something of a similar kind, or missing property of your own or

another’s—go to a boy’s room! There one finds abundance of everything,

from cobbler’s wax to the carmine from one’s own water-color box.

(One is apt to recognize old acquaintances, and one occasionally

reclaims their company!)

All things are in a more or less serviceable condition, and at the same

time sufficiently damaged to warrant appropriation to the needs of the

moment. One suffers much loss at boys’ hands from time to time, and it

is trying to have dainty feminine bowers despoiled of their treasures;

but there are occasions when one spoils the spoiler!

Then what admirable field naturalists boys can make! They are none the

worse for nocturnal moth hunts, or for wading up a stream for a

Batrachosperma, or for standing in a pond pressing recruits for the

fresh-water aquarium. A “collection” more or less is as nothing in the

vast chaos of their possessions, though some scrupulous sister might be

worried to find “a place for it.” And Fortune (capricious dame!) is

certainly fond of boys, and guides some young “harum-scarum” to a

_habitat_ that has eluded the spectacles of science. And their cuttings

always grow!

Then as to boys’ fun; within certain limits, there is no rough-and-ready

wit to be compared with it.

Thus it is a pity that some boys bring a delightful class into

disrepute—boys who are neither intelligent, modest, obliging, nor blest

with cultivated tastes—boys who kick animals, tease children, sneer at

feminine society, and shirk any company that is better than their

own—boys, in short, like Benjy, who at one period of his career did all

this, and who had a taste for low company, too, and something about his

general appearance which made you think how good for him it would be if

he could be well scrubbed with hot and soft soap both inside and out.

But Benjy’s worst fault, _the_ vice of his character, was cruelty to

animals. He was not merely cruel with the thoughtless cruelty of

childhood, nor with the cruelty which is a secondary part of sport, nor

with the occasional cruelty of selfishness or ill-temper. But he had

that taste for torture, that pleasure in other creatures’ pain, which

does seem to be born with some boys. It is incomprehensible by those who

have never felt the hateful temptation, and it certainly seems more like

a fiendish characteristic than a human infirmity.

Benjy was one of three children, and the only boy. He had two little

sisters, but they were younger than himself, and he held them in supreme

contempt. They were nice, merry little things, and many boys (between

teasing, petting, patronizing, and making them useful) would have found

them companionable enough, at any rate for the holidays. But Benjy, as I

have said, liked low company, and a boy with a taste for low company

seldom cares for the society of his sisters. Benjy thought games stupid;

he never touched his garden (though his sisters kept it religiously in

order during his absence at school); and as to natural history, or

reading, or any civilizing pursuit, such matters were not at all in

Benjy’s line.

But he was proud of being patronized by Tom, the coachman’s scapegrace

son—a coarse, cruel, and uneducated lad, whose ideas of “fun” Benjy

unfortunately made his own. With him he went to see pigs killed, helped

to drown supernumerary pups and kittens, and became learned in

dog-fights, cock-fights, rat-hunting, cat-hunting, and so forth.

Benjy’s father was an invalid, and he had no brothers, so that he was

without due control and companionship. His own lack of nice pursuits

made the excitement of cruelty an acceptable amusement for his idleness,

and he would have thought it unmanly to be more scrupulous and

tender-hearted than the coachman’s son.

The society of this youth did not tend to improve Benjy’s manners, and

indeed he was very awkward in the drawing-room. But he was talkative

enough in the stable, and rather a hero amongst the village boys who

stoned frogs by the riverside, in the sweet days of early summer.

Truly Benjy had little in common with those fair, grey-eyed, demure

little maidens, his sisters. As one of them pathetically said, “Benjy

does not care for us, you know, because we are only girls, so we have

taken Nox for our brother.”

NOX,

so called because he was (as poets say) “as black as night,” was a big,

curly dog, partly retriever and partly of Newfoundland breed. He was

altogether black, except his paws, which were brown, and for a grey spot

under his tail. Now as the grey-eyed, gentle little sisters elected him

for their brother in the room of Benjy it is but fair to compare the two

together.

Benjy, to look at, was smudgy and slovenly, and not at all handsome, for

he hated tubs, and brushes, and soap, and cold water, and he liked to

lie late in a morning, and then was apt to shuffle on his clothes and

come down after very imperfect ablutions, having forgotten to brush his

teeth, and with his hair still in dusky “cockatoos” from tossing about

in bed.

Nox rose early, delighted in cold water, and had teeth like ivory and

hair as glossy as a raven’s wing; his face beamed with intelligence and

trustfulness, and his clear brown eyes looked straight into yours when

you spoke to him, as if he would say, “Let my eyes speak for me, if you

please; I have not the pleasure of understanding your language.”

Benjy’s waistcoat and shirt-front were untidy and spotted with dirt.

The covering of Nox’s broad chest was always glossy and in good order.

Benjy came into the drawing room with muddy boots and dirty hands.

Nox, if he had been out in the mud, would lie down on his return and

lick his broad, soft, brown paws, like a cat, till they were clean.

It has been said that Benjy did not care for the society of girls; but

when Nox was petted by his lady-sisters, he put his big head on their

shoulders, and licked their faces with his big red tongue (which was his

way of kissing). And he would put up his brown feet in the most

insinuating manner, and shake paws over and over again, pressing tightly

with his strong toes, but never hurting the little girls’ hands.

Benjy destroyed lives with much wanton cruelty.

Nox saved lives at the risk of his own.

The ruling idea of his life, and what he evidently considered his most

important pursuit, in fact, his duty, or vocation, must be described at

some length.

Near the dog’s home ran a broad deep river. Here one could bathe and

swim most delightfully. Here also many an unfortunate animal found a

watery grave. There was one place from which (the water being deep and

the bank convenient at this spot) the poor wretches were generally

thrown. A good deal of refuse and worn-out articles of various sorts

also got flung in here, for at this point the river skirted the back

part of the town.

Hither at early morning Nox would come, in conformity with his own

peculiar code of duty, which may be summed up in these words: “_Whatever

does not properly or naturally belong to the water should be fetched

out._”

Now near the River Seine, in Paris, there is a building called the

_Morgue_, where the bodies of the drowned are laid out for recognition

by their friends. There was no such institution in the town where Nox

lived, so he established a Morgue for himself. Not far from the spot I

have mentioned, an old willow tree spread its branches widely over the

bank, and here and there stretched a long arm, and touched the river

with its pointed fingers. Under the shadow of this tree was the Morgue,

and here Nox brought the bodies he rescued from the river and laid them

down.

I use the word bodies in its most scientific sense, for it was not alone

the bodies of men or animals that Nox felt himself bound to reclaim. He

would strive desperately for the rescue of an old riding boot, the rung

of a chair, a worn-out hearthbrush, or anything obviously out of place

in the deep waters. Whatever the prize might be, when he had

successfully brought it ashore, he would toss his noble head, arch his

neck, paw with his forefeet, and twist and stick out his curly back, as

much as to say, “Will no one pat me as I deserve?” Though he held his

prize with all the delicacy of his retriever instincts, he could seldom

resist the temptation to give it one proud shake, after which he would

hurry with it to the willow tree, as if conscious that it was high time

it should be properly attended to.

There the mother whose child had fallen into the river, and the mother

whose child had thrown her broom into the water, might come to reclaim

their property, with equal chances of success.

Now it is hardly needful to say that between Benjy and Nox there was

very little in common. And if there were two things about Nox which

Benjy disliked more than others, they were his talent for rescue and the

institution of the Morgue.

There was a reason for this. Benjy had more than once been concerned in

the death of animals belonging to other people, and the owners had made

an inconvenient fuss and inquiry. In such circumstances Benjy and Tom

were accustomed to fasten a stone to the corpse and drop it into the

river, and thus, as they hoped, get rid of all testimony to the true

reason of the missing favorite’s disappearance.

But of all the fallacies which shadow the half-truths of popular

proverbs, none is greater than that of the saying, “Dead men tell no

tales.” For, to begin with, the dead body is generally the first witness

to a murder, and that despite the most careful hiding. And so the stones

which had been tied with hurried or nervous fingers were apt to come

off, and then the body of Neighbor Goodman’s spaniel, or old Lady

Dumble’s Angola cat, would float on the river, and tell their own true

and terrible tale.

But even then the current might have favored Benjy, and carried the

corpses away, had it not been for Nox’s early rounds whilst Benjy was

still in bed, and for that hateful and too notorious Morgue.

MISTER ROUGH,

was another dog belonging to Benjy’s father, and commonly regarded as

the property of Benjy himself. He was a wiry-haired terrier, with

clipped ears and tail, and a chain collar that jingled as he trotted

about on his bent legs. He was of a grizzled brown color excepting his

shirt-front, which was white, and his toe-tips, which were like the

light-colored toes of woolen socks. His eyes had been scratched by

cats—though not quite out—his lean little body bore marks of all kinds

of rough usage, and his bark was hoarse from a long imprisonment in a

damp outhouse in winter. Much training (to encounter rats and cats),

hard usage, short commons, and a general preponderance of kicks over

halfpence in his career had shortened his temper and his bark, and

caused both to be exhibited more often than would probably have been the

case in happier circumstances. He had been characterized as “rough,

tough, gruff, and up to snuff,” and the description fitted well.

If Benjy had a kind feeling for any animal, it was for Mister Rough,

though it might more truly be called admiration. And yet he treated him

worse than Nox, to whom he bore an unmitigated dislike. But Nox was a

large dog and could not be ill-treated with impunity. So Benjy feared

him and hated him doubly.

Next to an animal too strong to be ill-used at all Benjy disliked an

animal too weak to be ill-used much or long. Now as to this veteran

Mister Rough, there was no saying what he had not borne, and would not

bear. He seemed to absorb the nine lives of every cat he killed into his

own constitution, and only to grow leaner, tougher, more scarred, more

grizzled, and more “game” as time went on.

And so there grew up in Benjy an admiration for his powers of endurance

which almost amounted to regard.

MORE MISCHIEF.

Benjy had got a bad fit on him. He was in a mood for mischief. Perhaps

he was not well; he certainly was intolerable by all about him. He even

ventured to play a trick on Nox. Thus:

Nox was a luxurious, comfort-loving old fellow, and after a good deal of

exercise in the fresh air he thoroughly enjoyed the drowsy effect of a

plentiful meal, a warm room, and a comfortable hearth-rug.

If anything in the events of the day had disturbed his composure, or

affected his feelings, how he talked it all over to himself, with

curious, expressive little noises, marvellously like human speech, till

by degrees the remarks came few and far between, the velvety eyelids

closed, and with one expressive grunt Nox was asleep! But in a few

moments, though the handsome black body was at rest on the crimson

sheep-skin that was so becoming to his beauty, his—whatever you please

to allow in the shape of an “inner consciousness”—was in the land of

dreams. He was talking once more, this time with short, muffled barks

and whines, and twitching violently with his legs. Perhaps he fancied

himself accomplishing a rescue. But a whistle from his master would

pierce his dream, and quiet without awaking him.

In his most luxurious moments he would roll on to his back, and

stretching his neck and his four legs to their uttermost, would abandon

himself to sleep and enjoyment.

It was one of these occasions which Benjy chose for teasing poor Nox. As

he sat near him he kept lightly pricking his sensitive lips with a fine

needle. Nox would half awake, shake his head, rub his lips with his paw

in great disgust, and finally drop off again. When he was fairly asleep,

Benjy recommenced, for he did dearly love to tease and torment, and this

evening he was in a restless, mischievous mood. At last one prick was a

little too severe; Nox jumped up with a start, and the needle went

deeply in, the top breaking off with the jerk, but the remainder was

fast in the flesh, where his little sisters discovered it.

Oh! how they wept for the sufferings of their pet! _They_ were not

afraid of Nox, and had no scruple in handling the powerful mouth whose

sharp white teeth had so often pretended to bite their hands, with a

pretence as gentle as if they had been made of eggshell. At last the

braver of the two held his lips and extracted the needle, whilst the

other wiped the tears from her sister’s eyes that she might see what she

was about. Nox himself sat still and moaned faintly, and wagged his tail

very feebly; but when the operation was over he fairly knocked the

little sisters down in his gratitude, and licked their faces till he was

out of breath.

Then he talked to himself for a full half-hour about the injury, and who

could have been the culprit.

And then he fell asleep and dreamed of his enemy, and growled at him.

But Benjy went out and threw a stick at Mister Rough. And when Mister

Rough caught it he swung him by it violently round and round. But Mister

Rough’s teeth were beginning to be the worse for wear, and at the fifth

round he lost his hold for the first time in his career.

Then Benjy would have caught him to punish him, but either unnerved by

his failure, or suspicious of the wicked look in Benjy’s eye, Mister

Rough for the first time “feared his fate,” and took to his heels.

Benjy could not find him, but he found Tom, who was chasing a Scotch

terrier with stones. So Benjy joined the sport, which would have been

very good fun, but that one of the stones perversely hit the poor beast

on the head, and put an end to the chase.

And that night a neighbor’s dog was lost, and there was another corpse

in the river.

FROM THE MORGUE TO THE MOON.

Benjy went to bed, but he could not sleep. He wished he had not put that

dog in the river—it would get him into a scrape. He had been flogged

for Mr. Goodman’s spaniel, and though Mister Rough had been flogged for

Lady Dumble’s cat, Benjy knew on whose shoulders the flogging should by

rights have descended. Then Nox seemed all right, in spite of the

needle, and would no doubt pursue his officious charities with sunrise.

Benjy could not trust himself to get up early in the morning, but he

could go out that night, and he would—with a hayfork—and get the body

out of the water, and hide or bury it.

When Benjy came to the river-side a sort of fascination drew him to the

Morgue. What if the body were already there! But it was not. There were

only a kitten, part of an old basket, and the roller of a jack-towel.

And when Benjy looked up into the willow, the moon was looking down at

him through the forked limbs of the tree, and it looked so large and so

near, that Benjy thought that if he were sitting upon a certain branch

he could touch it with his hand.

Then he bethought him of a book which had been his mother’s and now

belonged to his sisters, in which it was amusingly pretended that dogs

went to the moon after their existence on earth was over. The book had a

frontispiece representing the dogs sitting in the moon and relating

their former experiences.

“It would be odd if the one we killed last were up there now,” said

Benjy to himself. And he fancied that as he said it the man in the moon

winked at him.

“I wonder if it is really true,” said Benjy, aloud.

“Not exactly,” said the man in the moon, “but something like it. This is

Beastland. Won’t you come up?”

“Well, I never did!” cried Benjy, whose English was not of the refined

order.

“Oh, yes, you have,” said the man in the moon, waggishly. “Now, are you

coming up? But perhaps you can’t climb.”

“Can’t I?” said Benjy, and in three minutes he was on the branch, and

close to the moon. The higher he climbed the larger the moon looked,

till it was like the biggest disc of light ever thrown by a magic

lantern, and when he was fairly seated on the branch close by, he could

see nothing but a blaze of white light all round him.

“Walk boldly in,” he heard the man in the moon say. “Put out your feet,

and don’t be afraid; it’s not so bright inside.” So Benjy put his feet

down, and dropped, and thought he was certainly falling into the river.

But he only fell upon his feet, and found himself in Beastland. It was

an odd place, truly!

As Cerberus guarded the entrance to Pluto’s domains, so there sat at the

going in to Beastland a black dog—the very black dog who gets on to

sulky children’s backs. And on the back of the black dog sat a crow—the

crow that people pluck when they quarrel; and though it has been plucked

so often it has never been plucked bare, but is in very good feather

yet, unfortunately. And in a field behind was an Irish bull, a mad bull,

but quite harmless. The old cow was there too, but not the tune she died

of, for being still popular on earth, it could not be spared. Near these

the nightmare was grazing, and in a corner of the field was the mare’s

nest, on which sat a round-robin, hatching plots.

And about the mare’s nest flew a tell-tale-tit—the little bird who

tells tales and carries news. And it has neither rest nor nest of its

own, for gossips are always gadding, and mischief is always being made.

And in a cat’s cradle swung from the sky slept the cat who washes the

dishes, with a clean dishcloth under her head, ready to go down by the

first sunbeam to her work. Whilst the bee that gets into Scotchmen’s

bonnets went buzzing restlessly up and down with nothing to do, for all

the lunatics in North Britain happened to be asleep that evening. And on

the head of the right nail hung a fancy portrait of the cat who “does

it,” when careless or dishonest servants waste and destroy things. I

need hardly say that the cat could not be there herself, because (like

Mrs. Gamp’s friend, Mrs. Harris) “there ain’t no such a person.”

Benjy stared about him for a bit, and then he began to feel

uncomfortable.

“Where is the man in the moon?” he inquired.

“Gone to Norwich,” said the tell-tale-tit.

“And have you anything to say against that?” asked the crow. “Caw, caw,

caw! pluck me, if you dare!”

“It’s very odd,” thought Benjy; “but I’ll go on.”

The black dog growled, but let him pass; the bee buzzed about, and the

cat in the cradle swung and slept serenely through it all.

“I should get on quicker if I rode instead of walking,” thought Benjy;

so he went up to the nightmare and asked if she would carry him a few

miles.

“You must be the victim of a very singular delusion,” said the

nightmare, coolly. “It is for me to be carried by you, not for you to

ride on me.” And as Benjy looked, her nose grew longer and longer, and

her eyes were so hideous, they took Benjy’s breath away; and he fled as

fast as his legs would carry him. And so he got deep, deep into

Beastland.

Oh! it was a beautiful place. There were many more beasts than there are

in the Zoölogical Garden; and they were all free. They did not devour

each other, for a peculiar kind of short grass grew all over Beastland,

which was eaten by all alike.

If by chance there were any quarrelling, or symptoms of misbehavior, the

man in the moon would cry “Manners!” and all was quiet at once.

Talking of manners, the civility of the beasts in Beastland was most

conspicuous. They came in crowds and welcomed Benjy, each after his own

fashion. The cats rubbed their heads against his legs and held their

tails erect, as if they were presenting arms. The dogs wagged theirs,

and barked and capered round him; except one French poodle, who “sat up”

during the whole visit, as an act of politeness. The little birds sang

and chirruped. The pigeons sat on his shoulders and cooed; two little

swallows clung to the eaves of his hat, and twitched their tails, and

said “Kiwit! kiwit!” A peacock with a spread tail went before him; and a

flock of rose-colored cockatoos brought up the rear. Presently a wise

and solemn old elephant came and knelt before Benjy; and Benjy got on to

his back and rode in triumph, the other beasts following.

“Let us show him the lions!” cried all the beasts, and on they went.

But when Benjy found that they meant real lions—like the lions in a

menagerie, but not in cages—he was frightened, and would not go on. And

he explained that by the “lions” of a place _he_ meant the “sights” that

are exhibited to strangers, whether natural curiosities or local

manufactures. When the beasts understood this, they were most anxious to

show him “lions” of his own kind.

So the wise-eyed beavers, whose black faces were as glossy as that of

Nox, took him to their lodges, and showed him how they fell or collect

wood “up stream” with their sharp teeth, and so float it down to the

spot where they have decided to build, as the “logs” from American

forests float down the rivers in spring. And as they displayed the

wonderous forethought and ingenuity of their common dwellings, a little

caddis worm, in the water hard by, begged Benjy to observe that, on a

smaller scale, his own house bore witness to similar patience and skill,

with its rubble walls of motley variety.

In another stream a doughty little stickleback sailing round and round

the barrel-shaped nest, over which he was keeping watch, displayed its

construction with pardonable pride.

Then Benjy saw, with an interest it was impossible not to feel, the

wonderful galleries in the earth cities of the ants; the nest of the

large hornet, the wasp, and the earwig, where hive as well as comb is

the work of the industrious proprietors; and whilst he was looking at

these, a message came from three patches of lepraliæ on the back of an

old oyster-shell by the sea, to beg that Benjy would come and see their

dwelling, where the cells were not of one uniform pattern, but in all

varieties of exquisite shapes, each tribe or family having its own

proper style of architecture. And it must not be supposed that, because

lepralæ cells can only be seen under a microscope with us, that it was

so in Beastland; for there all the labors and exquisite performances of

every small animal were equally manifest to sight.

But invitations came in fast. The “social grosbecks” requested him to

visit their city of nests in a distant wood; the “prairie dogs” wished

to welcome him to their village of mounds, where each dog, sitting on

his own little hut, eagerly awaited the honor of his visit. The rooks

bade him to a solemn conference; and a sentinel was posted on every

alternate tree, up to the place of meeting, to give notice of his

approach. A spider (looking very like some little, old, hard-headed,

wizen-faced, mechanical genius!) was really anxious to teach Benjy to

make webs.

“Look here,” said he; “we will suppose that you are ready and about to

begin. Well. You look—anywhere, in fact—down into space, and decide to

what point you wish to affix your first line. Then—you have a ball of

thread in your inside, of course?”

“I can’t say that I have,” said Benjy; “but I have a good deal of string

in my pocket.”

“That’s all right,” said the spider; “I call it thread; you call it

string. Pocket or stomach, it’s all the same, I suppose. Well——”

But just as the spider was at the crisis of his lesson, and all was

going on most pleasantly—whizz!—the tell-tale-tit made its appearance,

and soon whispered, first to one animal and then to another, who and

what Benjy was. The effect was magical. “Scandalous!” cried all the

beasts; “the monster!” An old tabby cat puffed out her tail, and ran up

a tree. “Boy!” she exclaimed, in a tone of the deepest disgust; for in

Beastland they say “boy” as a term of reproach where we should say

“beast.”

The confusion was great, and the tell-tale-tit revelled in it, hopping

and flitting about, and adding a word here or there if the excitement

seemed to flag.

“To think what he might do to us, if we were down yonder!” cried an old

pug. (She was a great-grand-mother and so fat that she could hardly

waddle.)

“He is in _your_ power up here, you know,” said the tell-tale-tit,

suggestively.

“So he is!” cried the beasts; and with one voice they

shouted—“Punishment! Punishment! Bring him to the lion!” And to the

lion he was brought, the beasts still crying, “Punishment! Punishment!”

“I’ll punish him!” cried a donkey, who trotted up on hearing of the

matter. “Let me get a lump of cold iron between his teeth, and tug and

jerk it against the corners of his mouth. Let me pull in and flog at the

same moment. Let me knock him over the head, and kick him in the ribs,

and thwack his back, and prod his side; and I’ll soon make him run, and

take his nasty temper out of him, and teach him to carry any weight, and

go gaily in harness.”

“Gently, gently, my friend,” said the lion. “You speak under a very

natural feeling of irritation; but if I am to be judge of this case, the

prisoner must have fair play.”

Accordingly the beasts placed themselves in a sort of circle, Benjy

being put in the middle; and a bull-frog who lived in a ditch hard by

was appointed to watch the case on his behalf. The bull-frog had big,

watchful eyes, and was cool and cautious. As the case proceeded he

occasionally said “Omph!” which sounded thoughtful, and committed him to

nothing.

“What is the prisoner accused of?” asked the lion.

At this question everybody looked round for the tell-tale-tit; but, like

most mischief-makers, the good gossip liked nothing less than being

brought to book, and had taken advantage of the confusion to fly away.

So the other animals had to recall what they had heard as best they

might.

“He ill-uses and drowns dogs, hunts and kills cats——”

“Rough kills the cats,” interrupted Benjy, for he was becoming alarmed.

“Omph!” said the bull-frog.

“Send for Mr. Rough,” said the lion; and a messenger was despatched. (It

is not always needful to disturb yourself, dear reader, when your pet

dog is absent without leave: he may have gone on business to Beastland.)

“Cock-a-doodle-do! Flap, flap! send for more whilst you are about it,”

cried a handsome gamecock, strutting into the midst. “Cock-a-doodle-do!

when I crow, let no other cock open his beak. There’s a

nice-cock-fighting, good-for-nothing young scapegrace! I know a pullet

of the same breed down yonder: his name is Tom. Let him be fetched up,

and we will fasten spurs to their heels, and set them to kick each other

and tear each other’s eyes out. It will be rare sport, and sport is a

noble taste, and should be encouraged. Flap, flap! cock-a-doodle-do!”

The cock was just stretched on his tiptoes, in the act of crowing, when

a pattering of feet and the jingling of a chain collar was heard, and

Mister Rough trotted brusquely into the circle, with his clipped ears

and his stumpy tail erect.

“Mister Rough,” said the lion; “the prisoner says it is you and not he

who torment the cats.”

“Bowf, bowf, bowf!” replied the terrier, jumping wildly about in his

stocking feet. “Whose fault is it? Wowf, wowf, wowf who taught me to do

it? Bowf, wowf! that bad boy there. Rowf, rowf! let me get hold of him

by the small of the back, and I’ll shake him as I would shake a rat.

Rowf, wowf, bowf!”

“_Manners!_” cried the man in the moon, and there was silence at once.

“Then he has not gone to Norwich, after all!” said Benjy to himself.

After a short pause the examination was resumed. Mister Rough deposed

that he hunted cats by the teaching and imperative orders of Benjy and

other human beings. That he could not now see a cat without a feeling

which he could only describe as madness seizing him, which obliged him

to chase and despatch puss without any delay. He never felt this

sensation towards the cat of his own house, in her own kitchen. They

were quite friendly, and ate from the same dish. In cross examination he

admitted that he had a natural taste for tearing things, and preferred

fur to any other material. But he affirmed that an occasional slipper or

other article would have served the purpose, but for his unfortunate

education, especially if the slipper or other article were hairy or

trimmed with fur.

“But all that is as nothing,” cried the old tabby, indignantly; “he has

been guilty of the most horrible cruelties, and they ought to be paid

back to him in kind. Sss, spt, he’s a boy, I say, a regular boy!”

“Omph!” said the bull-frog, and went below to consider the case.

“Gentlebeasts,” said the lion, “I consider it unnecessary to hear more

evidences against the prisoner, especially as no attempt is made to deny

his cruelties, though in the matter of cat-hunting he implicates Mister

Rough. There are not two opinions as to his guilt; the only open

question is that of punishment. As you have placed the matter in my

hands, I will beg you to wait until I have taken three turns and given

the subject my serious consideration.”

But instead of three turns the lion took seven, pacing majestically

round and round, and now and then lashing his tail. At last he resumed

his seat; the bull-frog put his green head up again, and the lion gave

judgment.

“Gentlebeasts, birds, and fishes, I have given this subject my most

serious consideration, and I trust that my decision will not give

offense. Our friend, Madame Tabby, declares that the prisoner should be

punished with a like cruelty to that which he has inflicted. Friend

Donkey is ready to ride or drive him with all the kicking, beating, and

pulling which soured his own temper, and stunted his faculties in their

early development. I must frankly roar that I am not in favor of this.

My friends, let us not degrade ourselves to the level of men. We know

what they are. Too often stupid in their kindness, vindictive in their

anger, and not seldom wantonly cruel. Is this our character as a class?

Do we even commonly retaliate? Ask friend Donkey himself. Does the

treatment (even more irrational than unkind) which blunts the

intelligence, and twists the temper of so many of his race, prevent

their rendering on the whole the largest labor for the roughest usage of

any servant of man? Need I speak of dogs? Do they bear malice towards a

harsh master? Are they unfaithful because he is unkind? Would Mister

Rough himself permit any one to touch an article of his master’s

property, or grudge his own life in his defense? No, my friends, we are

beasts, remember—not boys. We have our own ideas of chase and sport,

like men; but cruelty is not one of our vices. I believe, gentlebeasts,

that it is a principle with the human race to return good for evil; but

according to my experience the practice is more common amongst

ourselves. Gentlebeasts, we _cannot_ treat this boy as he has treated

us: but he is unworthy of our society, and I condemn him to be expelled.

Some of our dog-friends have taken refuge here with tin-kettles at their

tails. Let one of these be fastened to Benjy, and let him be chased from

Beastland.”

This was no sooner said than done. And with an old tin pan cutting his

heels at every step, Benjy was hunted from the moon. The lion gave one

terrific roar as the signal for starting, and all the beasts, with

Mister Rough at their head, gave chase.

Dear readers, did you ever wonder—as I used to wonder—if one could get

to the end of the world _and jump off_? One is bound to confess that, as

regards our old earth, it is not feasible; but permit me (in a story) to

state that Benjy ran and ran till he got to the end of the moon and

jumped off, Mister Rough jumping after him. Down, down they went through

space; past the Great Bear (where were all the ghosts of the big wild

beasts); past the Little Bear (where were the ghosts of all the small

wild beasts); close by the Dog Star, where good dogs go to when they

die, and where “the dog in the manger” sat outside and must never go in

till all the dogs are assembled. This they passed so close that they

could see the dog of Montargis and the hound Gelert affably licking each

other’s noses, and telling stories of old times to the latest comer.

This was a white poodle, whose days on earth had been prolonged by

tender care till he outlived almost every faculty and sense but the

power to eat, and a strange intuitive knowledge of his master’s

presence, surviving every other instinct. There he sat now, no longer

the blind, deaf, feeble, shrunken heap of bones and matted wool, that

died of sheer old age, and was buried on the garden side of the

church-yard wall, as near as permissible to the family vault; but the

snowy, fluffy, elegant poodle of his youth, with graceful ears raised in

respectful attention to the hero of Montargis.

Down, down they went, on, on! How far and long it seemed! And now it was

no longer night but morning, and the sun shone, and still they went on,

on, down, down: Benjy crying “Oh! oh!” and Rough and his chain collar

going “Bowf, wowf, jingle, jingle,” till they came close above the

river, and before Benjy could give an extra shriek the two were

floundering in the water. Rough soon swam ashore, but Benjy could not

swim, and the water sucked him down as it had sucked down many a dog in

that very spot. Then Benjy choked, and gasped, and struggled as his

victims had so often choked, and gasped, and struggled under his eyes.

And he fought with the intolerable suffocation till it seemed as if his

head must burst, yet he could not cry out, for the cold water gagged

him. Then he grasped at something that floated by, but it gave him no

help, for it was a dead dog—the one he had thrown into the river the

evening before. And horror chilled him more than the cold water had

done, as he thought that now he himself must be drowned, and rot among

these ghastly relics of his cruelty. And a rook on a tree hard by cried,

“Serve him right! serve him right!” whilst the frogs on the river’s

brink sat staring at the crushed bodies of their relatives, and croaked,

“Stone him! stone him!”

A pike hovering near could owe him no grudge, for the creatures he had

drowned had afforded it many a meal. But, like most accomplices, the

pike was selfish, and only waited for the time when it could eat Benjy

too.

Meanwhile, some one on the bank was giving short barks, like minute guns

of distress, that had quite a different meaning.

And then Benjy sank; and as he went down the remembrance of all his

cruelties rushed over his mind, as the water rushed over his body. All,

from the first bumble-bee he had tortured, to the needle in Nox’s lip,

came together in one hideous crowd to his remembrance, till even the

callous soul of Benjy sickened, and he loathed himself.

And now he rose again for a moment to the surface, and caught a breath

of air, and saw the blue sky, and heard a corn-crake in the field where

his sisters had wanted him to go cowslip-gathering; and he fancied that

he saw the beautiful black head of Nox also in the water, and found

himself saying in his heart, “No, no! thank God I didn’t kill _him_.”

And then he sank again. And he thought of his home, and his father and

mother, and the little sisters whom he had teased; and how he had got

them into scrapes, and killed their pets, and laughed at their tears.

And he remembered how they had come to meet him last midsummer holidays,

with flowers in their hats and flowers round the donkey’s ears; and how

he had prodded poor Neddy with a stick having a sliding spike, which he

had brought with him. And what fun he had found in the starts of the

donkey and the terror and astonishment of the children. Oh! how often

had he not skulked from the society of these good and dear ones, to be

proud of being noticed and instructed in evil by some untaught village

blackguard! And then he thought of the cosy bed and his mother’s nightly

blessing, never more to be his, who must now lie amongst dead dogs as if

he himself were such another!

And then he rose again, and there was the noble head of old Nox not

three feet from him. He could see the clear brown eyes fixed eagerly

upon him, and he thought, “He is coming to revenge himself on me.” But

he did not mind, for he was almost past feeling any new pain. Only he

gave one longing, wistful look towards the home that had been his. And

as he looked a lark rose and went up into the summer sky. And as the

lark went, up, up, Benjy went down, down.

Now as he sank there came into his mind a memory of something he had

once read, comparing the return of a Christian soul to God to the

soaring of a lark into the heavens. And no animal that he had seized in

his pitiless grasp ever felt such despair and helplessness as Benjy felt

when the strong, pitiless thought seized his soul that though his body

might decay among dead dogs, he could not die as the dogs had

died—irresponsible for the use of life. And many a sin, besides sins of

cruelty came back to poor Benjy’s mind—known sins, for which he had

been punished, but not penitent; sins that were known to no human being

but himself, and sins, that he had forgotten until now. And he

remembered one day at school, when the head master had given some

serious warnings and advice to himself and a few other boys in private.

And how he had sat mum and meek, with his smudgy and secretive face,

till the old doctor had departed, and how he had then delivered a not

very clever mimic address in the doctor’s style, to the effectual

dissipation of all serious thought. And now—opportunities, advice, and

time of amendment were all but gone, and what had he to look forward to?

From the depths of his breaking heart Benjy prayed he might somehow or

other be spared to do better. And for the third and last time he rose to

the surface.

The lark was almost out of sight; but close to Benjy’s pallid face was a

soft black nose, and large brown eyes met his with an expression neither

revengeful nor affectionate. It was business-like, earnest, and somewhat

eager and proud. And then the soft, sensitive mouth he had wounded

seized Benjy with a hold as firm and as gentle as if he had been a rare

water-fowl, and Nox paddled himself round with his broad, brown paws,

and made gallantly for shore. Benjy was much heavier than a dead cat,

and the big brave beast had hard work of it; so that by the time he had

dragged the body to land, Nox was too far spent to toss his head and

carry his prize about as usual. He dropped Benjy, and lay down by him,

with one paw on the body, as much as to say, “Let no unauthorized person

meddle in this matter.”

But when he had rested, he took up Benjy in his mouth, and—not deigning

so much as a glance in the direction of some men who were shouting and

running towards him—he trotted with his burden to the Morgue under the

willow tree, where he laid Benjy down side by side with two dead dogs, a

kitten, and an old hat.

After which he shook himself, and went home to breakfast.

* * * * * *

WHAT BECAME OF BENJY.

Benjy was duly found under the willow tree, and taken home. For a long

time he was very ill, though at last he recovered; and I am bound to

state that some of his relatives consider his visit to Beastland to be

entirely mythical. They believe that he fell from the willow tree into

the water, and that his visit to the moon is a fanciful conceit woven

during illness by his fevered brain.

However that may be, Benjy and beasts were thenceforward on very

different terms. Some other causes may have helped towards this. Perhaps

when the boys of a family are naturally disagreeable, the fact is apt to

be too readily acquiesced in. They have a license which no one would

dream of according to “the girls,” but it may sometimes be too readily

decided that “boys will be boys,” in the most obnoxious sense of the

phrase, and a “bad name” is unfavorable to them as well as to dogs.

Now, during long weeks of convalescence, Benjy’s only companions were

his parents and the little sisters whose sympathy with beastkind had

always been in such manifest contrast with his own tastes. And as the

little maids could only amuse him with their own amusements, and as,

moreover, there is no occupation so soothing, healing, and renovating to

mind and body, so full of interest without hurtful excitement, as the

study of Nature, it came about that Benjy’s sick-room was so decorated

with plants, aquariums, and so forth, that it became a sort of miniature

Beastland. From watching his sisters, Benjy took to feeding the

fresh-water beasts himself; and at last became so tenderly interested in

their fate, that he privately “tipped” the house-maid with his last

half-crown, to induce her to come up the stairs in the morning with

great circumspection. For the cray-fish was given to escaping from his

tank for an early stroll, and had once been all but trodden on at the

bottom of the first flight of stairs.

But it was a very sad event which finally and fully softened Benjy’s

heart.

As Benjy was being carried into the house after his accident, Mister

Rough caught sight of his master in this doleful position, and was

anxious to follow and see what became of him. But as he was in the way,

a servant was ordered to fasten him up in his own out-house; and to this

man’s care he was confided through Benjy’s illness. The little girls

often asked after him, and received satisfactory reports of his health,

but as the terrier’s temper was supposed to be less trustworthy than

that of Nox, they were not allowed to play with him, or take him out

with them. Hence it came about that he was a good deal neglected at this

time, Benjy’s parents being so absorbed by the anxiety of his illness,

and the sisters not being allowed to make the dog their companion. Once

or twice the servant took him out for a run; but Mister Rough would not

take a proper “constitutional.” The instant he was free, he fled to the

house to see what had become of Benjy. As he did this every time, and it

was inconvenient, the servant finally left him alone, and did not take

him out at all. Food was put within his reach, but Mister Rough’s

appetite failed daily. A cat crept in under the roof and looked at her

old enemy with impunity. A rat stole his crusts; and Mister Rough never

moved his eyes nor his nose from the opening under the barn-door. Oh,

for one sniff of Benjy passing by! Oh, to be swung round a dozen times

by the teeth or tail! Oh, for a kicking, a thrashing—for _anything_

from Benjy! So the gentle heart within that rough little body pined day

by day in its loving anxiety for a harsh master.

But the first time that Benjy came downstairs he begged that Mister

Rough might be brought into the drawing-room; for, as I have said, if he

had a regard for any animal, it was for the wiry terrier. So the servant

opened the barn-door; and Mister Rough thought of Benjy, and darted into

the house. And when he got into the front hall, he smelt Benjy, and ran

into the drawing-room; and when he got into the drawing-room, he saw

Benjy, who had heard the jingle of his collar, and stood up to receive

him with outstretched arms. Then with one wild sound, that was neither a

bark nor a whine, Mister Rough sprang to Benjy’s arms, and fell at his

feet.

Dead? Yes dead; with one spasm of unspeakable joy!

Benjy’s grief for his faithful friend was not favorable to his bodily

health just then, but it was good for him in other ways. And as the

bitter tears poured over his cheeks and dropped on to the scarred,

grizzled little face that could feel cruelty or kindness no more, the

smudginess seemed to be washed away from him body and soul.

Yes, in spite of all past sins, Benjy lived to amend, and to become,

eventually, a first-rate naturalist and a good friend to beasts. For

there is no doubt that some most objectionable boys do get scrubbed, and

softened, and ennobled into superior men. And Benjy was one of these.

By the time he was thoroughly strong again, he and his little sisters

had a common interest in the animals under their care—their own private

Beastland. He tried to pet another terrier, but in vain. So the new

“Rough” was given to the sisters, and Benjy adopted Nox. For he said, “I

should like a dog who knew Mister Rough;” and, “If Nox likes, me in

spite of old times, I shall believe I am fit to keep a pet.” And no one

who knows dogs needs to be told that not the ghost of a bit of malice

lessened the love which the benevolent retriever bore to his new master.

The savings of Benjy’s pocket-money for some time were expended on a

tombstone for the terrier’s grave, with this inscription:

TO A FAITHFUL FRIEND,

ROUGH WITHOUT AND GENTLE WITHIN,

WHO DIED OF JOY,

APRIL 3, 18—

ON HIS MASTER’S RECOVERY FROM SICKNESS.

And that true and tender beast, who bore so much hard usage for so long,

but died of his one great happiness——

Dear reader, do you not think he is in the Dog Star?

THE PEACE-EGG.

A CHRISTMAS TALE.

Every one ought to be happy at Christmas. But there are many things

which ought to be, and yet are not; and people are sometimes sad even in

the Christmas holidays.

The Captain and his wife were sad, though it was Christmas Eve. Sad,

though they were in the prime of life, blessed with good health, devoted

to each other and to their children, with competent means, a comfortable

house on a little freehold property of their own, and, one might say,

everything the heart could desire. Sad, though they were good people,

whose peace of mind had a firmer foundation than their earthly goods

alone; contented people, too, with plenty of occupation for mind and

body. Sad—and in the nursery this was held to be past all

reason—though the children were performing that ancient and most

entertaining play or Christmas mystery of Good St. George of England,

known as _The Peace-Egg_, for their benefit and behoof alone.

The play was none the worse that most of the actors were too young to

learn parts, so that there was very little of the rather tedious

dialogue, only plenty of dress and ribbons, and of fighting with the

wooden swords. But though St. George looked bonny enough to warm any

father’s heart, as he marched up and down with an air learned by

watching many a parade in barrack-square and drill-ground, and though

the Valiant Slasher did not cry in spite of falling hard and the Doctor

treading accidentally on his little finger in picking him up, still the

Captain and his wife sighed nearly as often as they smiled, and the

mother dropped tears as well as pennies into the cap which the King of

Egypt brought round after the performance.

THE CAPTAIN’S WIFE.

Many many years back the Captain’s wife had been a child herself, and

had laughed to see the village mummers act the Peace-Egg, and had been

quite happy on Christmas Eve. Happy, though she had no mother. Happy,

though her father was a stern man, very fond of his only child, but with

an obstinate will that not even she dared thwart. She had lived to

thwart it, and he had never forgiven her. It was when she married the

Captain. The old man had a prejudice against soldiers which was quite

reason enough, in his opinion, for his daughter to sacrifice the

happiness of her future life by giving up the soldier she loved. At last

he gave her her choice between the Captain and his own favor and money.

She chose the Captain, and was disowned and disinherited.

The Captain bore a high character, and was a good and clever officer,

but that went for nothing against the old man’s whim. He made a very

good husband, too; but even this did not move his father-in-law, who had

never held any intercourse with him or his wife since the day of their

marriage, and who had never seen his own grandchildren. Though not so

bitterly prejudiced as the old father, the Captain’s wife’s friends had

their doubts about the marriage. The place was not a military station,

and they were quiet country folk who knew very little about soldiers,

whilst what they imagined was not altogether favorable to “red-coats,”

as they called them. Soldiers are well-looking generally, it is true

(and the Captain was more than well-looking—he was handsome); brave, of

course, it is their business (and the Captain had V.C. after his name

and several bits of ribbon on his patrol jacket). But then, thought the

good people, they are here to-day and gone to-morrow, you “never know

where you have them;” they are probably in debt, possibly married to

several women in several foreign countries, and, though they are very

courteous in society, who knows how they treat their wives when they

drag them off from their natural friends and protectors to distant lands

where no one can call them to account?

“Ah, poor thing!” said Mrs. John Bull, junior, as she took off her

husband’s coat on his return from business, a week after the Captain’s

wedding, “I wonder how she feels? There’s no doubt the old man behaved

disgracefully; but it’s a great risk marrying a soldier. It stands to

reason, military men aren’t domestic; and I wish—Lucy Jane, fetch your

papa’s slippers, quick!—she’d had the sense to settle down comfortably

amongst her friends with a man who would have taken care of her.”

“Officers are a wild set, I expect,” said Mr. Bull, complacently, as he

stretched his limbs in his own particular arm-chair, into which no

member of his family ever intruded. “But the red-coats carry the day

with plenty of girls who ought to know better. You women are always

caught by a bit of finery. However, there’s no use our bothering _our_

heads about it. As she has brewed she must bake.”

The Captain’s wife’s baking was lighter and more palatable than her

friends believed. The Captain (who took off his own coat when he came

home, and never wore slippers but in his dressing-room) was domestic

enough. A selfish companion must, doubtless, be a great trial amid the

hardships of military life, but when a soldier is kind-hearted he is

often a much more helpful and thoughtful and handy husband than an

equally well-meaning civilian. Amid the ups and downs of their

wanderings, the discomforts of shipboard and of stations in the

colonies, bad servants, and unwonted sicknesses, the Captain’s

tenderness never failed. If the life was rough the Captain was ready. He

had been, by turns, in one strait or another, sick-nurse, doctor,

carpenter, nurse-maid, and cook to his family, and had, moreover, an

idea that nobody filled these offices quite so well as himself. Withal,

his very profession kept him neat, well-dressed, and active. In the

roughest of their ever-changing quarters he was a smarter man, more like

the lover of his wife’s young days, than Mr. Bull amid his stationary

comforts. Then if the Captain’s wife was—as her friends said—“never

settled,” she was also for ever entertained by new scenes; and domestic

mischances do not weigh very heavily on people whose possessions are few

and their intellectual interests many. It is true that there were ladies

in the Captain’s regiment who passed by sea and land from one quarter of

the globe to another, amid strange climates and customs, strange trees

and flowers, beasts and birds; from the glittering snows of North

America to the orchids of the Cape, from beautiful Pera to the

lily-covered hills of Japan, and who in no place rose above the fret of

domestic worries, and had little to tell on their return but of the

universal misconduct of servants, from Irish “helps” in the colonies, to

_compradors_ and China-boys at Shanghai. But it was not so with the

Captain’s wife. Moreover, one becomes accustomed to one’s fate, and she

moved her whole establishment from the Curragh to Corfu with less

anxiety than that felt by Mrs. Bull over a port-wine stain on the best

table-cloth.

And yet, as years went and children came, the Captain and his wife grew

tired of travelling. New scenes were small comfort when they heard of

the death of old friends. One foot of murky English sky was dearer,

after all, than miles of the unclouded heavens of the South. The gray

hills and over-grown lanes of her old home haunted the Captain’s wife by

night and day, and home-sickness (that weariest of all sicknesses) began

to take the light out of her eyes before their time. It preyed upon the

Captain too. Now and then he would say, fretfully, “_I should_ like an

English resting-place, however small, before _everybody_ is dead! But

the children’s prospects have to be considered.” The continued

estrangement from the old man was an abiding sorrow also, and they had

hopes that, if only they could get to England, he might be persuaded to

peace and charity this time.

At last they were sent home. But the hard old father still would not

relent. He returned their letters unopened. This bitter disappointment

made the Captain’s wife so ill that she almost died, and in one month

the Captain’s hair became an iron gray. He reproached himself for having

ever taken the daughter from her father, “to kill her at last,” as he

said. And (thinking of his own children) he even reproached himself for

having robbed the old widower of his only child. After two years at home

his regiment was ordered to India. He failed to effect an exchange, and

they prepared to move once more—from Chatham to Calcutta. Never before

had the packing to which she was so well accustomed been so bitter a

task to the Captain’s wife.

It was at the darkest hour of this gloomy time that the Captain came in,

waving above his head a letter which changed all their plans.

Now close by the old home of the Captain’s wife there had lived a man,

much older than herself, who yet had loved her with a devotion as great

as that of the young Captain. She never knew it, for when he saw that

she had given her heart to his younger rival, he kept silence, and he

never asked for what he knew he might have had—the old man’s authority

in his favor. So generous was the affection which he could never

conquer, that he constantly tried to reconcile the father to his

children whilst he lived, and, when he died, he bequeathed his house and

small estate to the woman he had loved.

“It will be a legacy of peace,” he thought, on his death-bed. “The old

man cannot hold out when she and her children are constantly in sight.

And it may please God that I shall know of the reunion I have not been

permitted to see with my eyes.”

And thus it came about that the Captain’s regiment went to India without

him, and that the Captain’s wife and her father lived on opposite sides

of the same road.

MASTER ROBERT.

The eldest of the Captain’s children was a boy. He was named Robert,

after his grandfather, and seemed to have inherited a good deal of the

old gentleman’s character, mixed with gentler traits. He was a fair,

fine boy, tall and stout for his age, with the Captain’s regular

features, and (he flattered himself) the Captain’s firm step and martial

bearing. He was apt—like his grandfather—to hold his own will to be

other people’s law, and (happily for the peace of the nursery) this

opinion was devoutly shared by his brother Nicholas. Though the Captain

had sold his commission, Robin continued to command an irregular force

of volunteers in the nursery, and never was Colonel more despotic. His

brothers and sisters were by turns infantry, cavalry, engineers, and

artillery, according to his whim, and when his affections finally

settled upon the Highlanders of “The Black Watch,” no female power could

compel him to keep his stockings above his knees or his knickerbockers

below them.

The Captain alone was a match for his strong-willed son.

“If you please, sir,” said Sarah, one morning, flouncing in upon the

Captain, just as he was about to start for the neighboring town,—“If

you please, sir, I wish you’d speak to Master Robert. He’s past my

powers.”

“I’ve no doubt of it,” thought the Captain, but he only said, “Well,

what’s the matter?”

“Night after night do I put him to bed,” said Sarah, “and night after

night does he get up as soon as I’m out of the room, and says he’s

orderly officer for the evening, and goes about in his night-shirt and

his feet as bare as boards.”

The Captain fingered his heavy moustache to hide a smile, but he

listened patiently to Sarah’s complaints.

“It ain’t so much _him_ I should mind, sir,” she continued, “but he goes

round the beds and wakes up the other young gentlemen and Miss Dora, one

after another, and when I speak to him, he gives me all the sauce he can

lay his tongue to, and says he’s going round the guards. The other night

I tried to put him back into his bed, but he got away and ran all over

the house, me hunting him everywhere, and not a sign of him till he

jumps out on me from the garret-stairs and nearly knocks me down. ‘I’ve

visited the outposts, Sarah,’ says he; ‘all’s well.’ And off he goes to

bed as bold as brass.”

“Have you spoken to your mistress?” asked the Captain.

“Yes, sir,” said Sarah. “And missis spoke to him, and he promised not to

go round the guards again.”

“Has he broken his promise?” asked the Captain, with a look of anger,

and also of surprise.

“When I opened the door last night, sir,” continued Sarah, in her shrill

treble, “what should I see in the dark but Master Robert a-walking up

and down with the carpet-brush stuck in his arm. ‘Who goes there?’ says

he. ‘You owdacious boy!’ says I, ‘Didn’t you promise your ma you’d leave

off them tricks?’ ‘I’m not going round the guards,’ says he; ‘I promised

not. But I’m for sentry duty to-night.’ And say what I would to him, all

he had for me was, ‘You mustn’t speak to a sentry on duty.’ So I says,

‘As sure as I live till morning, I’ll go to your pa,’ for he pays no

more attention to his ma than to me, nor to any one else.”

“Please to see that the chair-bed in my dressing-room is moved into your

mistress’s bed-room,” said the Captain. “I will attend to Master

Robert.”

With this Sarah had to content herself, and she went back to the

nursery. Robert was nowhere to be seen, and made no reply to her

summons. On this the unwary nurse-maid flounced into the bed-room to

look for him, when Robert, who was hidden beneath a table, darted forth,

and promptly locked her in.

“You’re under arrest,” he shouted, through the key-hole.

“Let me out!” shrieked Sarah.

“I’ll send a file of the guard to fetch you to the orderly-room,

by-and-by,” said Robert, “for ‘preferring frivolous complaints.’” And he

departed to the farm-yard to look at the ducks.

That night, when Robert went up to bed, the Captain quietly locked him

into his dressing-room, from which the bed had been removed.

“You’re for sentry duty, to-night,” said the Captain. “The carpet-brush

is in the corner. Good-evening.”

As his father anticipated, Robert was soon tired of the sentry game in

these new circumstances, and long before the night had half worn away he

wished himself safely undressed and in his own comfortable bed. At

half-past twelve o’clock he felt as if he could bear it no longer, and

knocked at the Captain’s door.

“Who goes there?” said the Captain.

“Mayn’t I go to bed, please?” whined poor Robert.

“Certainly not,” said the Captain. “You’re on duty.”

And on duty poor Robert had to remain, for the Captain had a will as

well as his son. So he rolled himself up in his father’s railway rug,

and slept on the floor.

The next night he was very glad to go quietly to bed, and remain there.

IN THE NURSERY.

The Captain’s children sat at breakfast in a large, bright nursery. It

was the room where the old bachelor had died, and now _her_ children

made it merry. This was just what he would have wished.

They all sat round the table, for it was breakfast-time. There were five

of them, and five bowls of boiled bread-and-milk smoked before them.

Sarah (a foolish, gossiping girl, who acted as nurse till better could

be found) was waiting on them, and by the table sat Darkie, the black

retriever, his long, curly back swaying slightly from the difficulty of

holding himself up, and his solemn hazel eyes fixed very intently on

each and all of the breakfast bowls. He was as silent and sagacious as

Sarah was talkative and empty-headed. The expression of his face was

that of King Charles I. as painted by Vandyke. Though large, he was

unassuming. Pax, the pug, on the contrary, who came up to the first

joint of Darkie’s leg, stood defiantly on his dignity (and his short

stumps). He always placed himself in front of the bigger dog, and made a

point of hustling him in doorways and of going first downstairs. He

strutted like a beadle, and carried his tail more tightly curled than a

bishop’s crook. He looked as one may imagine the frog in the fable would

have looked had he been able to swell himself rather nearer to the size

of the ox. This was partly due to his very prominent eyes, and partly to

an obesity favored by habits of lying inside the fender and of eating

meals proportioned more to his consequence than to his hunger. They were

both favorites of two years’ standing, and had very nearly been given

away, when the good news came of an English home for the family, dogs

and all.

Robert’s tongue was seldom idle, even at meals. “Are you a

Yorkshirewoman, Sarah?” he asked, pausing, with his spoon full in his

hand.

“No, Master Robert,” said Sarah.

“But you understand Yorkshire, don’t you? I can’t, very often; but mamma

can, and can speak it, too. Papa says mamma always talks Yorkshire to

servants and poor people. She used to talk Yorkshire to Themistocles,

papa said, and he said it was no good; for though Themistocles knew a

lot of langages, he didn’t know that. And mamma laughed, and said she

didn’t know she did.”—“Themistocles was our man-servant in Corfu,”

Robin added, in explanation. “He stole lots of things, Themistocles did;

but papa found him out.”

Robin now made a rapid attack on his bread-and-milk, after which he

broke out again.

“Sarah, who is that tall old gentleman at church, in the seat near the

pulpit? He wears a cloak like what the Blues wear, only all blue, and is

tall enough for a Life-guardsman. He stood up while we were kneeling,

and said, _Almighty and most merciful Father_ louder than anybody.”

Sarah knew who the old gentleman was, and knew also that the children

did not know, and that their parents did not see fit to tell them as

yet. But she had a passion for telling and hearing news, and would

rather gossip with a child than not gossip at all. “Never you mind,

Master Robin,” she said, nodding sagaciously. “Little boys aren’t to

know everything.”

“Ah, then, I know you don’t know,” replied Robert; “if you did, you’d

tell. Nicholas, give some of your bread to Darkie and Pax. I’ve done

mine. _For what we have received the Lord make us truly thankful._ Say

your grace and put your chair away, and come along. I want to hold a

court-martial.” And seizing his own chair by the seat, Robin carried it

swiftly to its corner. As he passed Sarah he observed tauntingly, “You

pretend to know, but you don’t.”

“I do,” said Sarah.

“You don’t,” said Robin.

“Your ma’s forbid you to contradict, Master Robin,” said Sarah; “and if

you do, I shall tell her. I know well enough who the old gentleman is,

and perhaps I might tell you, only you’d go straight off and tell

again.”

“No, no, I wouldn’t!” shouted Robin. “I can keep a secret, indeed I can!

Pinch my little finger, and try. Do, do tell me, Sarah, there’s a dear

Sarah, and then I shall know you know.” And he danced round her,

catching at her skirts.

To keep a secret was beyond Sarah’s powers.

“Do let my dress be, Master Robin,” she said, “you’re ripping out all

the gathers, and listen while I whisper. As sure as you’re a living boy,

that gentleman’s your own grandpapa.”

Robin lost his hold on Sarah’s dress; his arms fell by his side, and he

stood with his brows knit for some minutes, thinking. Then he said,

emphatically, “What lies you do tell, Sarah!”

“Oh, Robin!” cried Nicholas, who had drawn near, his thick curls

standing stark with curiosity, “mamma said ‘lies’ wasn’t a proper word,

and you promised not to say it again.”

“I forgot,” said Robin. “I didn’t mean to break my promise. But she does

tell—ahem!—_you know what_.”

“You wicked boy!” cried the enraged Sarah; “how dare you to say such a

thing, and everybody in the place knows he’s your ma’s own pa.”

“I’ll go and ask her,” said Robin, and he was at the door in a moment;

but Sarah, alarmed by the thought of getting into a scrape herself,

caught him by the arm.

“Don’t you go, love; it’ll only make your ma angry. There; it was all my

nonsense.”

“Then it’s not true?” said Robin, indignantly. “What did you tell me so

for?”

“It was all my jokes and nonsense,” said the unscrupulous Sarah. “But

your ma wouldn’t like to know I’ve said such a thing. And Master Robert

wouldn’t be so mean as to tell tales, would he love?”

“I’m not mean,” said Robin, stoutly; “and I don’t tell tales; but you

do, and you tell _you know what_, besides. However, I won’t go this

time; but I’ll tell you what—if you tell tales of me to papa any more,

I’ll tell him what you said about the old gentleman in the blue coat.”

With which parting threat Robin strode off to join his brothers and

sisters.

Sarah’s tale had put the court-martial out of his head, and he leaned

against the tall fender, gazing at his little sister, who was tenderly

nursing a well-worn doll. Robin sighed.

“What a long time that doll takes to wear out, Dora!” said he. “When

will it be done?”

“Oh, not yet, not yet!” cried Dora, clasping the doll to her, and

turning away. “She’s quite good, yet.”

“How miserly you are,” said her brother; “and selfish, too; for you know

I can’t have a military funeral till you’ll let me bury that old thing.”

Dora began to cry.

“There you go, crying!” said Robin, impatiently. “Look here; I won’t

take it till you get the new one on your birthday. You can’t be so mean

as not to let me have it then?”

But Dora’s tears still fell. “I love this one so much,” she sobbed. “I

love her better than the new one.”

“You want both; that’s it,” said Robin, angrily. “Dora, you’re the

meanest girl I ever knew!”

At which unjust and painful accusation Dora threw herself and the doll

upon their faces, and wept bitterly. The eyes of the soft hearted

Nicholas began to fill with tears, and he squatted down before her

looking most dismal. He had a fellow-feeling for her attachment to an

old toy, and yet Robin’s will was law to him.

“Couldn’t we make a coffin, and pretend the body was inside?” he

suggested.

“No, we couldn’t,” said Robin. “I wouldn’t play the Dead March after an

empty candle-box. It’s a great shame—and I promised she should be

chaplain in one of my night-gowns, too.”

“Perhaps you’ll get just as fond of the new one,” said Nicholas, turning

to Dora.

But Dora only cried, “No, no! He shall have the new one to bury, and

I’ll keep my poor, dear, darling Betsy.” And she clasped Betsy tighter

than before.

“That’s the meanest thing you’ve said yet,” retorted Robin; “for you

know mamma wouldn’t let me bury the new one.” And, with an air of great

disgust, he quitted the nursery.

“A MUMMING WE WILL GO.”

Nicholas had sore work to console his little sister, and Betsy’s

prospects were in a very unfavorable state, when a diversion was caused

in her favor by a new whim which put the military funeral out of Robin’s

head.

After he left the nursery he strolled out of doors, and, peeping through

the gate at the end of the drive, he saw a party of boys going through

what looked like a military exercise with sticks and a good deal of

stamping; but, instead of mere words of command, they all spoke by turns

as in a play. In spite of their strong Yorkshire accent, Robin overheard

a good deal, and it sounded very fine. Not being at all shy, he joined

them, and asked so many questions that he soon got to know all about it.

They were practising a Christmas mumming-play, called “The Peace-Egg.”

Why it was called thus they could not tell him, as there was nothing

whatever about eggs in it, and so far from being a play of peace, it was

made up of a series of battles between certain valiant knights and

princes, of whom St. George of England was the chief and conqueror. The

rehearsal being over, Robin went with the boys to the sexton’s house (he

was father to the “King of Egypt”), where they showed him the dresses

they were to wear. These were made of gay-colored materials, and covered

with ribbons, except that of the “Black Prince of Paradine,” which was

black, as became his title. The boys also showed him the book from which

they learned their parts, and which was to be bought for one penny at

the post-office shop.

“Then are you the mummers who come round at Christmas, and act in

people’s kitchens, and people give them money, that mamma used to tell

us about?” said Robin.

St. George of England looked at his companions as if for counsel as to

how far they might commit themselves, and then replied, with Yorkshire

caution, “Well, I suppose we are.”

“And do you go out in the snow from one house to another at night; and

oh, don’t you enjoy it?” cried Robin.

“We like it well enough,” St. George admitted.

Robin bought a copy of “The Peace-Egg.” He was resolved to have a

nursery performance, and to act the part of St. George himself. The

others were willing for what he wished, but there were difficulties. In

the first place, there are eight characters in the play, and there were

only five children. They decided among themselves to leave out “the

Fool,” and mamma said that another character was not to be acted by any

of them, or indeed mentioned; “the little one who comes in at the end,”

Robin explained. Mamma had her reasons, and these were always good. She

had not been altogether pleased that Robin had bought the play. It was a

very old thing, she said, and very queer; not adapted for a child’s

play. If mamma thought the parts not quite fit for the children to

learn, they found them much too long; so in the end she picked out some

bits for each, which they learned easily, and which, with a good deal of

fighting, made quite as good a story of it as if they had done the

whole. What may have been wanting otherwise was made up for by the

dresses, which were charming.

Robin was St. George, Nicholas the Valiant Slasher, Dora the Doctor, and

the other two Hector and the King of Egypt. “And now we’ve no Black

Prince!” cried Robin in dismay.

“Let Darkie be the Black Prince,” said Nicholas. “When you wave your

stick he’ll jump for it, and then you can pretend to fight with him.”

“It’s not a stick, it’s a sword,” said Robin. “However, Darkie may be

the Black Prince.”

“And what’s Pax to be?” asked Dora; “for you know he will come if Darkie

does, and he’ll run in before everybody else too.”

“Then he must be the Fool,” said Robin, “and it will do very well, for

the Fool comes in before the rest, and Pax can have his red coat on, and

the collar with the little bells.”

CHRISTMAS EVE.

Robin thought that Christmas would never come. To the Captain and his

wife it seemed to come too fast. They had hoped it might bring

reconciliation with the old man, but it seemed they had hoped in vain.

There were times now when the Captain almost regretted the old

bachelor’s bequest. The familiar scenes of her old home sharpened his

wife’s grief. To see her father every Sunday in church, with marks of

age and infirmity upon him, but with not a look of tenderness for his

only child, this tried her sorely.

“She felt it less abroad,” thought the Captain. “An English home in

which she frets herself to death is, after all, no great boon.”

Christmas eve came.

“I’m sure it’s quite Christmas enough now,” said Robin. “We’ll have ‘The

Peace-Egg’ to-night.”

So as the Captain and his wife sat sadly over their fire, the door

opened, and Pax ran in shaking his bells, and followed by the nursery

mummers. The performance was most successful. It was by no means

pathetic, and yet, as has been said, the Captain’s wife shed tears.

“What is the matter, mamma?” said St. George, abruptly dropping his

sword and running up to her.

“Don’t tease mamma with questions,” said the Captain; “she’s not very

well, and rather sad. We must all be very kind and good to poor dear

mamma;” and the Captain raised his wife’s hand to his lips as he spoke.

Robin seized the other hand and kissed it tenderly. He was very fond of

his mother. At this moment Pax took a little run, and jumped on to

mamma’s lap, where, sitting facing the company, he opened his black

mouth and yawned, with a ludicrous inappropriateness worthy of any

clown. It made everybody laugh.

“And now we’ll go and act in the kitchen,” said Nicholas.

“Supper at nine o’clock, remember,” shouted the Captain. “And we are

going to have real frumenty and yule cakes, such as mamma used to tell

us of when we were abroad.”

“Hurray!” shouted the mummers, and they ran off, Pax leaping from his

seat just in time to hustle the Black Prince in the doorway. When the

dining-room door was shut, St. George raised his hand, and said “Hush!”

The mummers pricked their ears, but there was only a distant harsh and

scraping sound, as of stones rubbed together.

“They’re cleaning the passages,” St. George went on, “and Sarah told me

they meant to finish the mistletoe, and have everything cleaned up by

supper-time. They don’t want us, I know. Look here, we’ll go _real

mumming_ instead. That _will_ be fun!”

The Valiant Slasher grinned with delight.

“But will mamma let us?” he inquired.

“Oh, it will be all right if we’re back by supper-time,” said St.

George, hastily. “Only of course we must take care not to catch cold.

Come and help me to get some wraps.”

The old oak chest in which spare shawls, rugs, and coats were kept was

soon ransacked, and the mummers’ gay dresses hidden by motley wrappers.

But no sooner did Darkie and Pax behold the coats, &c., than they at

once began to leap and bark, as it was their custom to do when they saw

any one dressing to go out. Robin was sorely afraid that this would

betray them; but though the Captain and his wife heard the barking they

did not guess the cause.

So the front door being very gently opened and closed, the nursery

mummers stole away.

THE NURSERY MUMMERS AND THE OLD MAN.

It was a very fine night. The snow was well-trodden on the drive, so

that it did not wet their feet, but on the trees and shrubs it hung soft

and white.

“It’s much jollier being out at night than in the daytime,” said Robin.

“Much,” responded Nicholas, with intense feeling.

“We’ll go a wassailing next week,” said Robin. “I know all about it, and

perhaps we shall get a good lot of money, and then we’ll buy tin swords

with scabbards for next year. I don’t like these sticks. Oh, dear, I

wish it wasn’t so long between one Christmas and another.”

“Where shall we go first?” asked Nicholas, as they turned into the high

road. But before Robin could reply, Dora clung to Nicholas, crying, “Oh,

look at those men!”

The boys looked up the road, down which three men were coming in a very

unsteady fashion, and shouting as they rolled from side to side.

“They’re drunk,” said Nicholas; “and they’re shouting at us.”

“Oh, run, run!” cried Dora; and down the road they ran, the men shouting

and following them. They had not run far, when Hector caught his foot in

the Captain’s great-coat, which he was wearing, and came down head-long

in the road. They were close by a gate, and when Nicholas had set Hector

upon his legs, St. George hastily opened it.

“This is the first house,” he said. “We’ll act here;” and all, even the

Valiant Slasher, pressed in as quickly as possible. Once safe within the

grounds, they shouldered their sticks, and resumed their composure.

“You’re going to the front door,” said Nicholas. “Mummers ought to go to

the back.”

“We don’t know where it is,” said Robin, and he rang the front door

bell. There was a pause. Then lights shone, steps were heard, and at

last a sound of much unbarring, unbolting, and unlocking. It might have

been a prison. Then the door was opened by an elderly, timid-looking

woman, who held a tallow candle above her head.

“Who’s there?” she said, “at this time of night.”

“We’re Christmas mummers,” said Robin, stoutly; “we didn’t know the way

to the back door, but——”

“And don’t you know better than to come here?” said the woman. “Be off

with you, as fast as you can.”

“You’re only the servant,” said Robin. “Go and ask your master and

mistress if they wouldn’t like to see us act. We do it very well.”

“You impudent boy, be off with you!” repeated the woman. “Master’d no

more let you nor any other such rubbish set foot in this house——”

“Woman!” shouted a voice close behind her, which made her start as if

she had been shot, “who authorizes you to say what your master will or

will not do, before you’ve asked him? The boy is right. You _are_ the

servant, and it is not your business to choose for me whom I shall or

shall not see.”

“I meant no harm, sir, I’m sure,” said the housekeeper; “but I thought

you’d never——”

“My good woman,” said her master, “if I had wanted somebody to think for

me, you’re the last person I should have employed. I hire you to obey

orders, not to think.”

“I’m sure, sir,” said the housekeeper, whose only form of argument was

reiteration, “I never thought you would have seen them——”

“Then you were wrong,” shouted her master. “I will see them. Bring them

in.”

He was a tall, gaunt old man, and Robin stared at him for some minutes,

wondering where he could have seen somebody very like him. At last he

remembered. It was the old gentleman of the blue cloak.

The children threw off their wraps, the housekeeper helping them, and

chattering ceaselessly, from sheer nervousness.

“Well, to be sure,” said she, “their dresses are pretty, too. And they

seem quite a better sort of children, they talk quite genteel. I might

ha’ knowed they weren’t like common mummers, but I was so flustrated

hearing the bell go so late, and——”

“Are they ready?” said the old man, who had stood like a ghost in the

dim light of the flaring tallow candle, grimly watching the proceedings.

“Yes, sir. Shall I take them to the kitchen, sir?”

“—— for you and the other idle hussies to gape and grin at? No. Bring

them to the library,” he snapped, and then stalked off, leading the way.

The housekeeper accordingly led them to the library, and then withdrew,

nearly falling on her face as she left the room by stumbling over

Darkie, who slipped in last like a black shadow.

The old man was seated in a carved oak chair by the fire.

“I never said the dogs were to come in,” he said.

“But we can’t do without them, please,” said Robin, boldly. “You see

there are eight people in ‘The Peace-Egg,’ and there are only five of

us; and so Darkie has to be the Black Prince, and Pax has to be the

fool, and so we have to have them.”

“Five and two make seven,” said the old man, with a grim smile; “what do

you do for the eighth?”

“Oh, that’s the little one at the end,” said Robin, confidentially.

“Mamma said we weren’t to mention him, but I think that’s because we’re

children.”—“You’re grown up, you know, so I’ll show you the book, and

you can see for yourself,” he went on, drawing ‘The Peace-Egg’ from his

pocket: “there, that’s the picture of him, on the last page; black, with

horns and a tail.”

The old man’s stern face relaxed into a broad smile as he examined the

grotesque woodcut; but when he turned to the first page the smile

vanished in a deep frown, and his eyes shone like hot coals with anger.

He had seen Robin’s name.

“Who sent you here?” he asked, in a hoarse voice. “Speak, and speak the

truth! Did your mother send you here?”

Robin thought the old man was angry with them for playing truant. He

said, slowly “N—no. She didn’t exactly send us; but I don’t think

she’ll mind our having come if we get back in time for supper. Mamma

never _forbid_ our going mumming, you know.”

“I don’t suppose she ever thought of it,” Nicholas said, candidly,

wagging his curly head from side to side.

“She knows we’re mummers,” said Robin, “for she helped us. When we were

abroad, you know, she used to tell us about the mummers acting at

Christmas, when she was a little girl; and so we thought we’d be

mummers, and so we acted to papa and mamma, and so we thought we’d act

to the maids, but they were cleaning the passages, and so we thought

we’d really go mumming; and we’ve got several other houses to go to

before supper-time; we’d better begin, I think,” said Robin; and without

more ado he began to march round and round, raising his sword and

shouting,—

“I am St. George, who from Old England sprung,

My famous name throughout the world hath rung.”

And the performance went off quite as creditably as before.

As the children acted the old man’s anger wore off. He watched them with

an interest he could not express. When Nicholas took some hard thwacks

from St. George without flinching, the old man clapped his hands; and

after the encounter between St. George and the Black Prince, he said he

would not have had the dogs excluded on any consideration. It was just

at the end, when they were all marching round and round, holding on by

each other’s swords “over the shoulder,” and singing “A mumming we will

go, &c.,” that Nicholas suddenly brought the circle to a standstill by

stopping dead short, and staring up at the wall before him.

“What _are_ you stopping for?” said St. George, turning indignantly

round.

“Look there!” cried Nicholas, pointing to a little painting which hung

above the old man’s head.

Robin looked, and said, abruptly, “It’s Dora.”

“Which is Dora?” asked the old man, in a strange sharp tone.

“Here she is,” said Robin and Nicholas in one breath, as they dragged

her forward.

“She’s the Doctor,” said Robin; “and you can’t see her face for her

things. Dor, take off your cap and pull back that hood. There! Oh, it

_is_ like her!”

It was a portrait of her mother as a child; but of this the nursery

mummers knew nothing. The old man looked as the peaked cap and hood fell

away from Dora’s face and fair curls, and then he uttered a sharp cry,

and buried his head upon his hands. The boys stood stupefied, but Dora

ran up to him, and, putting her little hands on his arms, said, in

childish pitying tones, “Oh, I am so sorry! Have you got a headache? May

Robin put the shovel in the fire for you? Mamma has hot shovels for her

headaches.” And, though the old man did not speak or move, she went on

coaxing him, and stroking his head, on which the hair was white. At this

moment Pax took one of his unexpected runs, and jumped on to the old

man’s knee, in his own particular fashion, and then yawned at the

company. The old man was startled and lifted his face suddenly. It was

wet with tears.

“Why, you’re crying!” exclaimed the children with one breath.

“It’s very odd,” said Robin, fretfully. “I can’t think what’s the matter

to-night. Mamma was crying too when we were acting, and papa said we

weren’t to tease her with questions, and he kissed her hand, and I

kissed her hand too. And papa said we must all be very good and kind to

poor dear mamma, and so I mean to be, she’s so good. And I think we’d

better go home, or perhaps she’ll be frightened,” Robin added.

“She’s so good, is she?” asked the old man. He had put Pax off his knee,

and taken Dora on to it.

“Oh, isn’t she!” said Nicholas, swaying his curly head from side to side

as usual.

“She’s always good,” said Robin emphatically; “and so’s papa. But I’m

always doing something I oughtn’t to,” he added, slowly. “But then, you

know, I don’t pretend to obey Sarah. I don’t care a fig for Sarah; and I

won’t obey any woman but mamma.”

“Who’s Sarah?” asked the grandfather.

“She’s our nurse,” said Robin, “and she tells—I mustn’t say what she

tells—but it’s not the truth. She told one about _you_ the other day,”

he added.

“About me?” said the old man.

“She said you were our grandpapa. So then I knew she was telling _you

know what_.”

“How did you know it wasn’t true?” the old man asked.

“Why, of course,” said Robin, “if you were our mamma’s father, you’d

know her, and be very fond of her, and come and see her. And then you’d

be our grandfather, too, and you’d have us to see you, and perhaps give

us Christmas-boxes. I wish you were,” Robin added with a sigh. “It would

be very nice.”

“Would _you_ like it?” asked the old man of Dora.

And Dora, who was half asleep and very comfortable, put her little arms

about his neck as she was wont to put them round the Captain’s, and

said, “Very much.”

He put her down at last, very tenderly, almost unwillingly, and left the

children alone. By-and-by he returned, dressed in the blue cloak, and

took Dora up again.

“I will see you home,” he said.

The children had not been missed. The clock had only just struck nine

when there came a knock on the door of the dining-room, where the

Captain and his wife still sat by the yule-log. She said “Come in,”

wearily, thinking it was frumenty and the Christmas cakes.

But it was her father, with her child in her arms!

PEACE AND GOODWILL.