Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men Part 17

"Fine was.h.i.+ng too!" said the dairymaid, "And his hair's all lugs."

"I could comb them," said Daisy.

"He's no but got one eye," said the swineherd. "Haw! haw! haw!"

"He sees me with the other," said Daisy. "He's looking up at me now."

"And one of his ears gone!" cried the dairy la.s.s. "He! he! he!"

"Perhaps I could make him a cap," said Daisy, "as I did when my doll lost her wig. It had pink ribbons and looked very nice."

"Why, he's lame of a leg," guffawed the two farming-men. "See, missy, he hirples on three."

"I can't run very fast," said Daisy, "and when I'm old enough to, perhaps his leg will be well."

"Why, you don't want this old thing for a play-fellow, child?" said the farmer.

"I do! I do!" wept Daisy.

"But why, in the name of whims and whamsies?"

"Because I love him," said Daisy.

When it comes to this with the heart, argument is wasted on the head; but the farmer-went on: "Why he's neither useful nor ornamental. He's been a good dog in his day, I dare say; but now--"

At this moment Flaps threw his head up in the air and sniffed, and his one eye glared, and he set his teeth and growled.

He smelt the gipsy, and the gipsy's black pipe, and every hair stood on end with rage.

"The dog's mad!" cried the swineherd, seizing a pitchfork.

"You're a fool," said the farmer (who wasn't). "There's some one behind that haystack, and the old watch-dog's back is up. See! there he runs; and as I'm a sinner, it's that black rascal who was loitering round, the day my ricks were fired, and you lads let him slip. Off after him, for I fancy I see smoke." And the farmer flew to his haystacks.

Hungry and tired as he was, Flaps would have pursued his old enemy, but Daisy would not let him go. She took him by the ear and led him indoors to breakfast instead. She had a large basin of bread-and-milk, and she divided this into two portions, and gave one to Flaps and kept the other for herself. And as she says she loves Flaps, I leave you to guess who got most bread-and-milk.

That was how the gipsy came to live for a time in the county gaol, where he made mouse-traps rather nicely for the good of the rate-payers.

And that was how Flaps, who had cared so well for others, was well cared for himself, and lived happily to the end of his days.

"Why, it's in print!" said Father c.o.c.k; "and I said as plain as any c.o.c.k could crow, that it was a secret. Now, who let it out?"

"Don't talk to me about secrets," said the fair foreigner; "I never trouble my head about such things."

"Some people are very fond of drawing attention to their heads," said the common hen; "and if other people didn't think more of a great unnatural-looking chignon than of all the domestic virtues put together, they might have their confidences respected."

"I's all very well," said Father c.o.c.k, "but you're all alike. There's not a hen can know a secret without going and telling it."

"Well, come!" said a little Bantam hen, who had newly arrived; "whichever hen told it, the c.o.c.k must have told it first."

"What's that ridiculous nonsense your talking?" cried the c.o.c.k; and he ran at her and pecked her well with his beak.

"Oh! oh! oh!" cried the Bantam.

Dab, dab, dab, pecked the c.o.c.k.

"Now! has anybody else got anything to say on the subject?"

But n.o.body had. So he flew up on to the wall, and cried "c.o.c.k-a-doodle-doo!"

[Ill.u.s.tration]

A WEEK SPENT IN A GLa.s.s POND.

BY THE GREAT WATER-BEETLE.

Very few beetles have ever seen a Gla.s.s Pond. I once spent a week in one, and though I think, with good management, and in society suitably selected, it may be a comfortable home enough, I advise my water-neighbours to be content with the pond in the wood.

The story of my brief sojourn in the Gla.s.s Pond is a story with a moral, and it concerns two large cla.s.ses of my fellow-creatures: those who live in ponds and--those who don't. If I do not tell it, no one else will.

Those connected with it who belong to the second cla.s.s (namely, Francis, Molly, and the learned Doctor, their grandfather) will not, I am sure.

And as to the rest of us, there is none left but--

However, that is the end of my tale, not the beginning.

The beginning, as far as I am concerned, was in the Pond. It is very difficult to describe a pond to people who cannot live under water, just as I found it next door to impossible to make a minnow I knew believe in dry land. He said, at last, that perhaps there might be some little s.p.a.ce beyond the pond in hot weather, when the water was low; and that was the utmost that he would allow. But of all cold-blooded unconvinceable creatures, the most obstinate are fish.

Men are very different. They do not refuse to believe what lies beyond their personal experience. I respected the learned Doctor, and was really sorry for the disadvantages under which he laboured. That a creature of his intelligence should have only two eyes, and those not even compound ones--that he should not be able to see under water or in the dark--that he should not only have nothing like six legs, but be quite without wings, so that he could not even fly out of his own window for a turn in the air on a summer's evening--these drawbacks made me quite sorry for him; for he had none of the minnow's complacent ignorance. He knew my advantages as well as I knew them myself, and bore me no ill-will for them.

"The _Dyticus marginalis_, or Great Water-Beetle," I have heard him say, in the handsomest manner, "is equally at home in the air, or in the water. Like all insects in the perfect state, it has six legs, of which the hindmost pair are of great strength, and fringed so as to serve as paddles. It has very powerful wings, and, with Shakespeare's witches, it flies by night. It has two simple, and two sets of compound eyes. When it goes below water, it carries a stock of air with it, on the diving-bell principle; and when this is exhausted, comes to the surface, tail uppermost, for a fresh supply. It is the most voracious of the carnivorous water-beetles."

The last sentence is rather an unkind reflection on my good appet.i.te, but otherwise the Doctor spoke handsomely of me, and without envy.

And yet I am sure it could have been no matter of wonder if my compound eyes, for instance, had been a very sore subject with a man who knew of them, and whose one simple pair were so nearly worn out.

More than once, when I have seen the old gentleman put a green shade on to his reading-lamp, and gla.s.ses before his eyes, I have felt inclined to hum,--"Ah, my dear Doctor, if you could only take a cool turn in the pond! You would want no gla.s.ses or green shades, where the light comes tenderly subdued through water and water-weeds."

Indeed, after living, as I can, in all three--water, dry land, and air,--I certainly prefer to be under water. Any one whose appet.i.te is as keen, and whose hind-legs are as powerful as mine, will understand the delights of hunting, and being hunted, in a pond; where the light comes down in fitful rays and reflections through the water, and gleams among the hanging roots of the frog-bit, and the fading leaves of the water-starwort, through the maze of which, in and out, hither and thither, you pursue, and are pursued, in cool and skilful chase, by a mixed company of your neighbours, who dart, and shoot, and dive, and come and go, and any one of whom at any moment may either eat you or be eaten by you.

And if you want peace and quiet, where can one bury oneself so safely and completely as in the mud? A state of existence, without mud at the bottom, must be a life without repose.

I was in the mud one day, head downwards, when human voices came to me through the water. It was summer, and the pond was low at the time.

"Oh, Francis! Francis! The Water-Soldier[D] is in flower."