Miscellanea Part 7

COUSIN PEREGRINE'S WONDER STORIES.

THE CHINESE JUGGLERS, AND THE ENGLISHMAN'S HANDS.

(_Founded on Fact_.)

Cousin Peregrine had never been away quite so long before. He had been in the East, and the latter part of his absence from home had been spent not only in a foreign country, but in parts of it where Englishmen had seldom been before, and amid the miserable scenes of war.

However, he was at home at last, very much to the satisfaction of his young cousins, and also to his own. They had been a.s.sured by him, in a highly ill.u.s.trated letter, that his arms were safe and sound in his coat-sleeves, that he had no wooden legs, and that they might feel him all over for wounds as hard as they liked. Only Maggie, the eldest, could even fancy she remembered Cousin Peregrine, but they all seemed to know him by his letters, even before he arrived. At last he came.

Cousin Peregrine was dressed like other people, much to the disappointment of his young relatives, who when they burst (with more or less attention to etiquette) into the dining-room with the dessert, were in full expectation of seeing him in his uniform, or at least with his latest medal pinned to his dress-coat.

Perhaps it was because Cousin Peregrine was so very seldom troubled by chubby English children with a claim on his good nature that he was particularly indulgent to his young cousins. However this may be, they soon stood in no awe of him, and a chorus cried around him--

"Where's your new medal, Cousin? What's it about? What's on it?"

"Taku Forts," said Cousin Peregrine, smiling grimly.

"What's Tar--Koo?" inquired the young people.

"Taku is the name of a place in China, and you know I've just come from China," said Cousin Peregrine.

On which six voices cried--

"Did you drink nothing but tea?"

"Did you buy lots of old China dragons?"

"Did you see any ladies with half their feet cut off?"

"Did you live in a house with bells hanging from the roof?"

"Are the Chinese like the people on Mamma's fan?"

"Did you wear a pigtail?"

Cousin Peregrine's hair was so very short that the last question raised a roar of laughter, after which the chorus spoke with one voice--

"Do tell us all about China!"

At which he put on a serio-comic countenance, and answered with much gravity--

"Oh, certainly, with all my heart. It will be rather a long story, but never mind. By the way, I am afraid I can hardly begin much before the birth of Confucius, but as that happened in or about the year 550 B.C., you will still have to hear about two thousand four hundred years of its history or so, which will keep us going for a few months".

"Confucius--whose real name was Kw.a.n.g-Foo-Tsz (and if you can p.r.o.nounce that last word properly you can do more than many eminent Chinese scholars can)--was born in the province of Kan Tang ----.

"Oh, not about Confuse-us!" pleaded a little maid on Cousin Peregrine's knee. "Tell us what you did."

"But tell us _wonderful_ things," stipulated a young gentleman, fresh from _The Boy Hunters_ and kindred works.

If young bachelors have a weak point when they are kind to children, it is that they are apt to puzzle them with paradoxes. Even Cousin Peregrine did "sometimes tease," so his cousins said.

On this occasion he began a long rambling speech, in which he pretended not to know what things are and what are not _wonderful_. The _Boy Hunters_ young gentleman fell headlong into the quagmire of definitions, but the oldest sister, who had her own ideas about things, said firmly--

"Wonderful things are things which surprise you very much, and which you never saw before, and which you don't understand. Like as if you saw a lot of giants coming out of a hole in the road. At least that's what _we_ mean by wonderful."

"Upon my word, Maggie," said Cousin Peregrine, "your definition is most admirable. I cannot say that I have met with giants in China, even in the north, where the men are taller than in the south. But I can tell you of something I saw in China which surprised me very much, which I had never seen before, and which, I give you my word, I don't understand to this hour, but which I have no doubt was not in the least wonderful to the poor half-naked Chinaman who did it in my courtyard. And then, if you like, I will tell you something else which surprised some Chinese country-folk very much, which they never saw before, and which they certainly did not understand when they did see it. Will that do?"

"Oh yes, yes! Thank you, yes!" cried the chorus, and Maggie said--

"First all about the thing _you_ thought wonderful, you know."

"Well, the thing I thought wonderful was a conjuring trick done by a Chinese juggler."

"Did he only do one trick?" said the little maid on Cousin Peregrine's knee.

"Oh, he did lots of tricks," said Cousin Peregrine, "many of them common Eastern ones, which are now familiar in England, but which he certainly performed in a wonderful way: because, you see, he had not the advantage of doing his tricks on a stage fitted up by himself, he did them in the street, or in my courtyard, with very little apparatus, and naked to the waist. For instance, the common trick of bringing a gla.s.s bowl full of water and fish out of a seemingly empty shawl is not so marvellous if the conjurer has a well-draped table near him from behind which he can get such things, or even good wide sleeves to hide them in. But my poor conjurer was almost naked, and the bit of carpet, about the size of this hearthrug, which he carried with him, did not seem capable of holding gla.s.s bowls of water, most certainly. Besides which he shook it, and spread it on the ground close by me, after which he threw himself down and rolled on it. And yet from underneath this he drew out a gla.s.s bowl of water with gold-fish swimming in it. But that trick and many others one can see very well done in London now, though not so utterly without apparatus. The trick which he did so particularly well, and which puzzled me so much, I have never seen in Europe. This is the one I am going to describe to you."

"Describe the conjurer a bit more first, Cousin Peregrine."

"There is nothing more to describe. He was not at all a grand conjurer, he was only a poor common juggler, exhibiting his tricks in the public streets many times in the day for the few small coins which the bystanders chose to give him. He was a very merry fellow, and all the time he was about his performance he kept making fun and jokes; and these amused the audience so much that you may believe that I was sorry my ignorance of his language hindered me from understanding them.

"All sorts of people used to stop and look at the juggler: brawny porters, with loads of merchandise, or boxes of tea, or bars of silver, which they carried in boxes or baskets slung on bamboo poles over their shoulders."

"Like the pictures on the tea-boxes," whispered little Bessy.

"There's a figure of it in the grocer's window," said her brother, who had seen more of the world than Bessy; "not a picture, a figure dressed in silk; and they're square boxes, not baskets, that he's got--wooden panniers I call them."

"Who else used to stop, Cousin Peregrine?" asked Maggie.

"Street confectioners, Maggie, with small movable sweetmeat stalls, which they carry on their backs. Men with portable stoves too, who always have a cup of tea ready for you for a small coin worth about the twentieth part of a penny. Tiny-footed women toddling awkwardly along, with children--also cramp-footed--toddling awkwardly after them, dressed in all the colours of the rainbow, and with their poor little arms stuck out at right angles with their bodies, to help them to keep their balance. Even the blind beggars, who go along striking on a bell to let people know that they are blind, as otherwise they might be knocked over, even they used to stop and listen to my juggler's jokes, though they could not see his tricks.

"All this was in the street; but sometimes I got him to come into my own courtyard to do his tricks there, that I might watch him more carefully.

But watch as I might, I could never see how he did this particular feat. He used to do it with no clothes on except a pair of short trousers, for in the hot season, you must know, the lower cla.s.ses of Chinese go about naked to the waist. Indeed, hot as it is, they don't wear hats. The juggler possessed both a hat and a jacket, as it happened, but he took them off when he did his trick."

"And what _was_ the trick?" asked several impatient voices. "What did he do?"

"He used to swallow ten or twelve needles one after the other, and 'wash them down' with a ball of thread, which he swallowed next, and by and by he used to draw the thread slowly out of his mouth, yard after yard, and it had all the needles threaded on it."

"Oh, Cousin Peregrine!"

"He used to come quite close to me, Maggie, as close as I am to you now, and take each needle--one after the other--between the finger and thumb of his right hand--keeping all the other fingers away from it, stick the point of it for a moment into his other palm, to show that it was sharp, and then to all appearance swallow it bodily before your eyes. In this way he seemed to swallow successively all the twelve needles. Then he opened his mouth, that you might ascertain that they were not there, and you certainly could not see them. He next swallowed a little ball of thread, not much bigger than a pea. This being done, he seemed to be very uneasy (as well he might be!), and he made fearful faces and violent gestures, and stamped on the ground, and muttered incantations, and threw up his hands and eyes to the sky; and presently the end of a thread was to be seen coming out between his teeth, upon which he took hold of this end, and carefully drew out the thread with all the needles threaded on it. Then there was always much applause, and the small coins used to be put pretty liberally into the hat which he handed round to receive them."

"Was that all?" asked the young gentleman of the adventure books.

"All what, Fred?"