Aileen Aroon, A Memoir Part 24

"Look here, Fiddler," said Bill, showing all his teeth--and he has an awful lot of them--"talk a little more respectfully when you address your betters. I've a very good mind to--"

"To what, Master Bill?" said "Don Pedro," a beautiful large white-and-black Newfoundland, coming suddenly on the ground.

"No one is talking to you, Don," said Bill.

"But _I'm_ talking to you, Bill," said Don Pedro; "and if I hear you say you'll dare to touch poor little Fiddler, I'll carry you off and drown you in the nearest pond, that's all."

Bill ran off with his tail between his feet before Don Pedro had done speaking. Now isn't Don Pedro a dear, good fellow?

"Well, I'm not a champion dog, you see, though I modestly advance; I _might_ have taken a prize or two if I'd ever had a chance; But shows, I fear, were never meant for the like of poor me,-- Besides, my master isn't rich, and couldn't pay the fee; Yet I love my master none the less, and serve him faithfully.

"Poor master's got no eyes, you know, and I lead him through the street; And he plays upon the fiddle, and oh! he plays so sweet.

That I wonder and I ponder, while my eyes with salt tears glisten.

How so many people pa.s.s him by, and never stop to listen: How that nasty big blue man, with his nasty big blue coat.

Moves master on so roughly that I long to bite his throat!

"There are certain quiet side-streets where master oft I take, Where he's sure to get a penny, and I a bit of cake; But at times the nights are rainy, and seem so very long, That I envy pets in carriages, though I know that that is wrong; And master's growing very old, and his blood is getting thin, And he often s.h.i.+vers with the cold before I lead him in.

"Poor master loves me very much, and I love master too; But if anything came over me, whatever _could_ he do?

I think of things like these, you know, when in my bed at night, Even in my dreams those nasty thoughts oft make me cry with fright!

Yet, though my lot seems very hard, and my pleasures are but few I do not grieve, for well I know a dog's life soon wears through; And I've been told by some there are better worlds than this, That, even for little doggies, there's a future state of bliss: That faithfulness and love are things that cannot die, And sorrow _here_ means joy _there_-- in the realms beyond the sky."

CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR.

MR AND MRS POLYPUS: A STORY FOUNDED ON A FACT IN NATURAL HISTORY.

"Our plenteous streams a varied race supply."

Pope.

"Creatures that by a rule of Nature teach The art of order to a peopled kingdom."

Shakespeare.

Scene: The old pine forest; a beautiful day in later summer. Grey clouds flitting across the sky's bright blue, and occasionally obscuring the sun's rays. A gentle breeze going whispering through the woods, the giant elms, the lordly oaks, and the dark and gloomy firs bending and bowing as the wind pa.s.ses among their branches. Patches of bright crimson here and there where the foxgloves still bloom; patches of purple and yellow where heather and furze are growing. Not a sound to be heard in all the wood, except the clear, joyous notes of the robin; all his young ones are safely hatched and fledged, and flown away, and he is singing a hymn of thanksgiving.

Aileen Aroon lying as usual with her great head on my lap, Theodore Nero as usual tumbling on the gra.s.s, Ida close at my side peeping over my shoulder at the paper I am reading aloud to her.

Ida (_speaks_): "What mites of people your hero and heroine are!"

The author: "Yes, puss; didn't you order me to write you a tale with tiny, tiny, tiny people in it? Well, here they are. They are microscopic."

Ida: "But of course it is not a true story; it is composed, as you call it."

The author: "It is a romance, Ida; but it is a romance of natural history, because, you know, there _are_ creatures called polyps that live in the sea, and are so small you have to get a microscope to watch their motions, and they often eat each other, or swallow each other alive, and do all sorts of strange things; and so I call my story--

"Mr and Mrs Polypus: A Tale of the Coralline Sea, a tale of the Indian Ocean, a romance of the coralline sea.

"Far down beneath the blue waves lived my hero and heroine all alone together in their crystal home, with its floors of coral and its windows of diamonds. The cottage in which they dwelt was of a very strange shape indeed, being nothing like any building ever you saw on the face of the earth--but it suited them well--and all around it was a beautiful garden of living plants. Well, all plants possess life; but these were, in reality, living animals, living beings, shaped like flowers, but as capable of eating and drinking as you or I am, only they were all on stalks, and could only catch their food as it floated past them. This seems somewhat awkward, but then they were used to it, and custom is everything. I don't believe these animals growing on stalks ever wished to walk any oftener than human beings wished to fly.

"Mr and Mrs Polypus, as you may easily guess, were husband and wife, but for all that I am very sorry to have to tell you that they did not always live very peaceably together. They used to have little disagreements now and then; for they were only polyps, you must remember, and smaller far than water-babies. Their little quarrels were always about their food, for, if the truth must be told, Mr Polypus was somewhat of a tyrant to his tiny wife.

"Mr Polypus had many faults; he was, among other things, a very great glutton; so much so, that he did not mind his wife starving so long as he himself had enough to eat.

"Now a word or two about the personal appearance of my princ.i.p.al characters. They were indeed a funny-looking couple, and so small, that unless you had had good eyes, and a tolerably good microscope as well, it would have been impossible for you to see much of what they were doing at all. They were both the same shape, and had only one leg a-piece--a comparatively thick one though--so that when they walked about it was hop, hop, hop on one end, and very ridiculous it looked.

But then, if they had only one leg each, Nature had made it up to them in the matter of arms; for instead of two only, as you have, they had a whole row of them all round their shoulders. Wonderfully movable arms they were too, and seemed all joints together, and neither he nor his wife could keep from whirling their arms about whenever they were excited. They had, in fact, so many arms that they could afford to place two pair akimbo, fold one or two pairs across the chest, and still have a few left to shake in each other's faces when scolding; not that she did much of that, for she was very mild and obedient.

"The only food that Mr and Mrs Polypus got was little fishes, which came floating in through the window to them, or down the chimney, or in by the door; so that they never required to go to the market to buy any provisions; they only had to wait comfortably at their own fireside until breakfast or dinner swam in to them of its own accord. But this did not satisfy the craving appet.i.te of Mr Polypus; so he used often to be from home, swimming up and down the streets, or hopping about at the bottom of the village of Coral Town, where fish did most abound; and it was only when he was away from home on a fis.h.i.+ng expedition that poor pretty Mrs Polypus used to get anything to eat, for she was a quiet little woman, and always stopped at home. Poor thing, the neighbours were often very sorry for her; for hers had been a very sad story. For all she was so quiet now, she was once the gayest of the gay, the life and soul of the village of Coral Town. At every ball or party that was given, Peggy--for so she was then called--was the star; and whenever Peggy countenanced a picnic or an angling match, all the village went too and took his wife with him.

"When Peggy was still in her teens she fell in love with gay, rollicking young Mr Pompey, the pota.s.sium merchant. You know it was all pota.s.sium that they burned in Coral Town, because that burns under water, and coals won't; and instead of the streets and houses being lighted with gas or oil at nights, they were illuminated with phosphorus. For the next six months after Pompey met pretty Peggy at a ball, their young lives were but as one happy dream; for Pompey loved Peggy dearly, and Peggy loved Pompey. Away down at the bottom of Coral Town was a beautiful submarine garden, with fresh-water shrubs of every shade and flowers of every hue, and there were lonely caves and grottoes and groves, and all kinds of lovely scenery imaginable; and here the lovers often met, and along the winding pathways they ofttimes hopped together.

'Twas here Pompey first declared his pa.s.sion, and first beheld the love-light in his Peggy's beaming eyes. One evening they were seated side by side in a coral cave. Everything around them was peaceful and still, the water clear and pellucid, and unbroken by a single ripple.

They had sat thus for hours; for the time had flown very quickly, and Pompey had been reading a delightful book to Peggy, until it got so dark he couldn't see. Far up above them were the phosph.o.r.escent lights in the village twinkling like stars in heaven's firmament. The cave in which they sat was lighted up by a large diamond, which sparkled in the roof, and diffused a soft rose light all around, while here and there on the floor lay strange-shaped musical sh.e.l.ls, which ever and anon gave forth sounds like Aeolian harps.

"'Ah!' sighed Pompey, and--

"'Ah!' sighed Peggy, and--

"'When shall we wed?' said Pompey, and--

"'Whenever you please,' said she.

"'Oh! oh!' cried a terrible voice at their elbows, 'there'll be two words to that bargain. He! he! There's many a slip 'twixt the cup and the lip. Ha! ha!'

"And behold! there in the mouth of the cave stood an ugly old male polyp grinning and bobbing at them like some dreadful ogre.

"'How dare you, sir!' said Pota.s.sium Pompey, springing from his seat, and striding with a couple of hops towards the new-comer--'how dare you intrude yourself on the privacy of affianced lovers?'

"'Intrude? Ho! ho! Privacy? He! he! Affianced? Ha! ha!' replied the old polyp. 'I'll soon let you know that, young jackanapes.'

"'Sir,' cried Pompey, 'this insolence shall not go unpunished. Unhand me, Peggy.'

"'Oh! hush, hush, pray hush,' cried poor Peggy, wringing a few of her hands; 'it's my father, Pompey, my poor father.'

"'That fright your father?' replied Pompey; 'but there, for your sake, my Peggy, and for the sake of his grey hairs, I will spare him.'

"'Come along, Miss Malapert; adieu, Mr Jackanapes,' cried the enraged father; and he dragged his daughter from the cave, but not before she had time to cast one tearful look of fond farewell on her lover, not before she had time to extend ten hands to him behind her back, and he had fondly pressed them all.

"Peggy's father was a miserly old polyp, who lived in a superb residence in the most fas.h.i.+onable part of Coral Town. He had servants who went or came at his beck or call, a splendid chariot of pure gold to ride in, with pure-bred fish-horses, and the only thing he ever had to annoy him was that when he awoke in the morning he could not think of any new pleasure for the day that had dawned. Every day he had a lovely little polyp boy killed for his dinner--for polyps are all cannibals--and if that meal didn't please him, then he used to eat one of the flunkeys.

But for all his riches, he was not a gentleman. He had made all his money as a marine store dealer, and then retired to live at his mansion, with his only daughter Peggy.

"Now, for the next many days poor Pota.s.sium Pompey was a very unhappy polyp indeed. He went about his business very listlessly, neglected to eat, grew awfully thin, and let his beard grow, and people even said that he sometimes sold them bad pota.s.sium. As for Peggy, she was locked up in a room all by herself, and never saw any one at all, except her father, who five times a day came regularly to feed her, and when she refused to eat he cruelly crammed it down her throat. He was only a polyp, remember.

"'I'll fatten the gipsy,' he said to himself, 'and then marry _her_ to my old friend Peterie. He can support a wife, for I always see him fis.h.i.+ng, and he can't possibly eat all he catches himself.'

"So it was all arranged that the wedding should come off, and one day, as Pompey was returning disconsolately from his office, he met a great and noisy crowd, who were huzzaing and waving their arms in the water, and shouting, 'Long live the happy, happy pair!' And presently up drove the old miser's chariot, with six fish-horses, and polyp postillions to match; and seated there beside his detested rival, Pompey caught a glimpse of his loved and lost darling Peggy; thereupon Pompey made up his mind to drown himself right off. So he went and sought out the blackest, deepest pool, and plunged in. But polyps are so used to the water that they cannot drown, and so the more Pompey tried to drown himself, the more the water wouldn't drown him; so at last he wiped his eyes, and--

"'What a fool I am,' said he, 'to attempt death for the sake of one fair lady, when there are hundreds of polyps as beautiful as she in Coral Town. I'll go home and work, and make riches, then I'll marry ten wives, and hold them all in my arms at once.'