THREE CHRISTMAS-TREES.
Thisis a story of Three Christmas-Trees. The first was a real one, but the child we are to speak of did not see it. He saw the other two, but they were not real; they only existed in his fancy. The plot of the story is very simple; and, as it has been described so early, it is easy for those who think it stupid to lay the book down in good time.
Probably every child who reads this has seen one Christmas-tree or more; but in the small town of a distant colony with which we have to do, this could not at one time have been said. Christmas-trees were then by no means so universal, even in England, as they now are, and in this little colonial town, they were unknown. Unknown that is, till the Governor’s wife gave her great children’s party. At which point we will begin the story.
The Governor had given a great many parties in his time. He had entertained big wigs and little wigs, the passing military and the local grandees. Everybody who had the remotest claim to attention had been attended to: the ladies had had their full share of balls and pleasure parties: only one class of the population had any complaint to prefer against his hospitality; but the class was a large one—it was the children. However, he was a bachelor, and knew little or nothing about little boys and girls: let us pity rather than blame him. At last he took to himself a wife; and among the many advantages of this important step, was a due recognition of the claims of these young citizens. It was towards happy Christmas-tide, that “the Governor’s amiable and admired lady” (as she was styled in the local newspaper) sent out notes for his first children’s party. At the top of the note paper was a very red robin, who carried a blue Christmas greeting in his mouth, and at the bottom—written with the A. D. C.’s best flourish—were the magic words,A Christmas Tree. In spite of the flourishes—partly perhaps, because of them—the A. D. C.’s handwriting, though handsome, was rather illegible. But for all this, most of the children invited contrived to read these words, and those who could not do so were not slow to learn the news by hearsay. There was to be a Christmas-Tree! It would be like a birthday party, with this above ordinary birthdays, that there were to be presents for every one.
One of the children invited lived in a little white house, with a spruce fir-tree before the door. The spruce fir did this good service to the little house, that it helped people to find their way to it; and it was by no means easy for a stranger to find his way to any given house in this little town, especially if the house were small and white, and stood in one of the back streets. For most of the houses were small, and most of them were painted white, and the back streets ran parallel with each other, and had no names, and were all so much alike that it was very confusing. For instance, if you had asked the way to Mr. So-and-So’s, it is very probable that some friend would have directed you as follows: “Go straight forward and take the first turning to your left, and you will find that there are four streets, which run at right angles to the one you are in, and parallel with each other. Each of them has got a big pine in it—one of the old forest trees. Take the last street but one, and the fifth white house you come to is Mr. So-and-So’s. He has green blinds and a colored servant.” You would not always have got such clear directions as these, but with them you would probably have found the house at last, partly by accident, partly by the blinds and colored servant. Some of the neighbors affirmed that the little white house had a name; that all the houses and streets had names, only they were traditional and not recorded anywhere; that very few people knew them, and nobody made any use of them. The name of the little white house was said to be Trafalgar Villa, which seemed so inappropriate to the modest peaceful little home, that the man who lived in it tried to find out why it had been so called. He thought that his predecessor must have been in the navy, until he found that he had been the owner of what is called a “dry-goods store,” which seems to mean a shop where things are sold which are not good to eat or drink—such as drapery. At last somebody said, that as there was a public-house called the “Duke of Wellington” at the corner of the street, there probably had been a nearer one called “The Nelson,” which had been burnt down, and that the man who built “The Nelson” had built the house with a spruce fir before it, and that so the name had arisen. An explanation which was just so far probable, that public-houses and fires were of frequent occurrence in those parts.
But this had nothing to do with the story. Only we must say, as we said before, and as we should have said had we been living there then, the child we speak of lived in the little white house with one spruce fir just in front of it.
Of all the children who looked forward to the Christmas-tree, he looked forward to it the most intensely. He was an imaginative child, of a simple, happy nature, easy to please. His father was an Englishman, and in the long winter evenings he would tell the child tales of the old country, to which his mother would listen also. Perhaps the parents enjoyed these stories the most. To the boy they were new, and consequently delightful, but to the parents they were old; and as regards some stories, that is better still.
“What kind of a bird is this on my letter?” asked the boy on the day which brought the Governor’s lady’s note of invitation. “And oh! what is a Christmas-tree?”
“The bird is an English robin,” said his father. “It is quite another bird to that which is called a robin here: it is smaller and rounder; and has a redder breast and bright dark eyes, and lives and sings at home through the winter. A Christmas-tree is a fir-tree—just such a one as that outside the door—brought into the house and covered with lights and presents. Picture to yourself our fir-tree lighted up with tapers on all the branches, with dolls, and trumpets, and bonbons, and drums, and toys of all kinds hanging from it like fir-cones, and on the tip-top shoot a figure of a Christmas Angel in white, with a star upon its head.”
“Fancy!” said the boy.
And fancy he did. Every day he looked at the spruce firs, and tried to imagine it laden with presents, and brilliant with tapers, and thought how wonderful must be that “old country”—Home, as it was called, even by those who had never seen it—where the robins were so very red, and where at Christmas the fir-trees were hung with toys instead of cones.
It was certainly a pity that, two days before the party, an original idea on the subject of snowmen struck one of the children who used to play together, with their sleds and snow-shoes, in the back streets. The idea was this: That instead of having a common-place snowman, whose legs were obliged to be mere stumps, for fear he should be top-heavy, and who could not walk, even with them; who, in fact, could do nothing but stand at the corner of the street, holding his impotent stick, and staring with his pebble eyes, till he was broken to pieces or ignominiously carried away by a thaw,—that, instead of this, they should have a real, live snowman, who should walk on competent legs, to the astonishment, and (happy thought!) perhaps to the alarm of the passers-by. This delightful novelty was to be accomplished by covering one of the boys of the party with snow till he looked as like a real snowman as circumstances would admit. At first everybody wanted to be the snowman, but, when it came to the point, it was found to be so much duller to stand still and be covered up than to run about and work, that no one was willing to act the part. At last it was undertaken by the little boy from the Fir House. He was somewhat small, but then he was so good-natured he would always do as he was asked. So he stood manfully still, with his arms folded over a walking-stick upon his breast, while the others heaped the snow upon him. The plan was not so successful as they had hoped. The snow would not stick anywhere except on his shoulders, and when it got into his neck he cried with the cold; but they were so anxious to carry out their project, that they begged him to bear it “just a little longer:” and the urchin who had devised the original idea wiped the child’s eyes with his handkerchief, and (with that hopefulness which is so easy over other people’s matters) “dared say that when all the snow was on, he wouldn’t feel it.” However, he did feel it, and that so severely that the children were obliged to give up the game, and, taking the stick out of his stiff little arms, to lead him home.
It appears that it is with snowmen as with some other men in conspicuous positions. It is easier to find fault with them than to fill their place.
The end of this was a feverish cold, and, when the day of the party came, the ex-snowman was still in bed. It is due to the other children to say that they felt the disappointment as keenly as he did, and that it greatly damped the pleasure of the party for them to think that they had prevented his sharing in the treat. The most penitent of all was the deviser of the original idea. He had generously offered to stay at home with the little patient, which was as generously refused; but the next evening he was allowed to come and sit on the bed, and describe it all for the amusement of his friend. He was a quaint boy, this urchin, with a face as broad as an American Indian’s, eyes as bright as a squirrel’s, and all the mischief in life lurking about him, till you could see roguishness in the very folds of his hooded Indian winter coat of blue and scarlet. In his hand he brought the sick child’s presents: a dray with two white horses, and little barrels that took off and on, and a driver, with wooden joints, a cloth coat, and everything, in fact, that was suitable to the driver of a brewer’s dray, except that he had blue boots and earrings, and that his hair was painted in braids like a lady’s, which is clearly the fault of the doll manufacturers, who will persist in making them all of the weaker sex.
“And what was the Christmas-tree like?” asked the invalid.
“Exactly like the fir outside your door,” was the reply. “Just about that size, and planted in a pot covered with red cloth. It was kept in another room till after tea, and then when the door was opened it was like a street fire in the town at night—such a blaze of light—candles everywhere! And on all the branches the most beautiful presents. I got a drum and a penwiper.”
“Was there an angel?” the child asked.
“Oh, yes!” the boy answered. “It was on the tip-top branch, and it was given to me, and I brought it for you, if you would like it; for, you know, I am so very, very sorry I thought of the snowman and made you ill, and I do love you, and beg you to forgive me.”
And the roguish face stooped over the pillow to be kissed; and out of a pocket in the hooded coat came forth the Christmas Angel. In the face it bore a strong family likeness to the drayman, but its feet were hidden in folds of snowy muslin, and on its head glittered a tinsel star.
“How lovely!” said the child. “Father told me about this. I like it best of all. And it is very kind of you, for it is not your fault that I caught cold. I should have liked it if we could have done it, but I think to enjoy being a snowman, one should be snow all through.”
They had tea together, and then the invalid was tucked up for the night. The dray was put away in the cupboard, but he took the angel to bed with him.
And so ended the first of the Three Christmas-Trees.
* * * * * *
Except for a warm glow from the wood fire in the stove, the room was dark; but about midnight it seemed to the child that a sudden blaze of light filled the chamber. At the same moment the window curtains were drawn aside, and he saw that the spruce fir had come close up to the panes, and was peeping in. Ah! how beautiful it looked! It had become a Christmas-tree. Lighted tapers shone from every familiar branch, toys of the most fascinating appearance hung like fruit, and on the tip-top shoot there stood the Christmas Angel. He tried to count the candles, but somehow it was impossible. When he looked at them they seemed to change places—to move—to become like the angel, and then to be candles again, whilst the flames nodded to each other and repeated the blue greeting of the robin, “A Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!” Then he tried to distinguish the presents, but, beautiful as the toys looked, he could not exactly discover what any of them were, or choose which he would like best. Only the Angel he could see clearly—so clearly! It was more beautiful than the doll under his pillow; it had a lovely face like his own mother’s, he thought, and on its head gleamed a star far brighter than tinsel. Its white robes waved with the flames of the tapers, and it stretched its arms towards him with a smile.
“I am to go and choose my present,” thought the child; and he called “Mother! mother dear! please open the window.”
But his mother did not answer. So he thought he must get up himself, and with an effort, he struggled out of bed.
But when he was on his feet, everything seemed changed! Only the fire-light shone upon the walls, and the curtains were once more firmly closed before the window. It had been a dream, but so vivid that in his feverish state he still thought it must be true, and dragged the curtains back to let in the glorious sight again. The fire-light shone upon a thick coating of frost upon the panes, but no further could he see, so with all his strength he pushed the window open and leaned out into the night.
The spruce fir stood in its old place; but it looked very beautiful in its Christmas dress. Beneath it lay a carpet of pure white. The snow was clustered in exquisite shapes upon its plumy branches; wrapping the tree top with its little cross shots, as a white robe might wrap a figure with outstretched arms.
There were no tapers to be seen, but northern lights shot up into the dark blue sky, and just over the fir-tree shone a bright, bright star.
“Jupiter looks well to-night,” said the old Professor in the town observatory, as he fixed his telescope; but to the child it seemed as the star of the Christmas Angel.
His mother had really heard him call, and now came and put him back to bed again. And so ended the second of the Three Christmas-Trees.
* * * * * *
It was enough to have killed him, all his friends said; but it did not. He lived to be a man, and—what is rarer—to keep the faith, the simplicity, the tender-heartedness, the vivid fancy of his childhood. He lived to see many Christmas-Trees “at home,” in that old country where the robins are red-breasts, and sing in winter. There a heart as good and gentle as his own became one with his; and once he brought his young wife across the sea to visit the place where he was born. They stood near the little white house, and he told her the story of the Christmas-trees.
“This was when I was a child,” he added.
“But that you are still,” said she; and she plucked a bit of the fir-tree and kissed it, and carried it away.
He lived to tell the story to his children, and even to his grandchildren; but he never was able to decide which of the two was the more beautiful—the Christmas-Tree of his dream, or the Spruce Fir as it stood in the loveliness of that winter night.
This is told, not that it has anything to do with any of the Three Christmas-Trees, but to show that the story is a happy one, as is right and proper; that the hero lived, and married, and had children, and was as prosperous as good people, in books, should always be.
Of course he died at last. The best and happiest of men must die; and it is only because some stories stop short in their history, that every hero is not duly buried before we lay down the book.
When death came for our hero he was an old man. The beloved wife, some of his children, and many of his friends had died before him, and of those whom he had loved there were fewer to leave than to rejoin. He had had a short illness, with little pain, and was now lying on his death-bed in one of the big towns in the North of England. His youngest son, a clergyman, was with him, and one or two others of his children, and by the fire sat the doctor.
The doctor had been sitting by the patient, but now that he could do no more for him he had moved to the fire; and they had taken the ghastly, half-emptied medicine bottles from the table by the bedside, and had spread it with a fair linen cloth, and had set out the silver vessels of the Supper of the Lord.
The old man had been “wandering” somewhat during the day. He had talked much of going home to the old country, and with the wide range of dying thoughts he had seemed to mingle memories of childhood with his hopes of Paradise. At intervals he was clear and collected—one of those moments had been chosen for his last sacrament—and he had fallen asleep with the blessing in his ears.
He slept so long and so peacefully that the son almost began to hope there might be a change, and looked towards the doctor, who still sat by the fire with his right leg crossed over his left. The doctor’s eyes were also on the bed, but at that moment he drew out his watch and looked at it with an air of professional conviction, which said, “It’s only a question of time.” Then he crossed his left leg over his right, and turned to the fire again. Before the right leg should be tired, all would be over. The son saw it as clearly as if it had been spoken, and he too turned away and sighed.
As they sat, the bells of a church in the town began to chime for midnight service, for it was Christmas Eve, but they did not wake the dying man. He slept on and on.
The doctor dozed. The son read in the Prayer Book on the table, and one of his sisters read with him. Another, from grief and weariness, slept with her head upon his shoulder. Except for a warm glow from the fire, the room was dark. Suddenly the old man sat up in bed, and, in a strong voice, cried with inexpressible enthusiasm.
“How beautiful!”
The son held back his sisters, and asked quietly,
“What, my dear father?”
“The Christmas-Tree!” he said, in a low, eager voice. “Draw back the curtains.”
They were drawn back; but nothing could be seen, and still the old man gazed as if in ecstacy.
“Light!” he murmured. “The Angel! the Star!”
Again there was silence; and then he stretched forth his hands, and cried passionately,
“The Angel is beckoning to me! Mother! mother dear! Please open the window.”
The sash was thrown open, and all eyes turned involuntarily where those of the dying man were gazing. There was no Christmas-Tree—no tree at all. But over the housetops the morning star looked pure and pale in the dawn of Christmas Day. For the night was past, and above the distant hum of the streets the clear voices of some waits made the words of an old carol heard—words dearer for their association than their poetry—
“While shepherds watched their flocks by nightAll seated on the ground,The Angel of the Lord came down,And glory shone around.”
“While shepherds watched their flocks by nightAll seated on the ground,The Angel of the Lord came down,And glory shone around.”
“While shepherds watched their flocks by nightAll seated on the ground,The Angel of the Lord came down,And glory shone around.”
“While shepherds watched their flocks by night
All seated on the ground,
The Angel of the Lord came down,
And glory shone around.”
When the window was opened, the soul passed; and when they looked back to the bed the old man had lain down again, and like a child, was smiling in his sleep—his last sleep.
And this was the Third Christmas-Tree.
AN IDYL OF THE WOOD.
“Tellus a story,” said the children, “a sad one, if you please, and a little true. But, above all, let it end badly, for we are tired of people who live happily ever after.”
“I heard one lately,” said the old man who lived in the wood; “it is founded on fact, and it is a sad one also; but whether it ends badly or no I cannot pretend to say. That is a matter of taste: what is a bad ending?”
“A story ends badly,” said the children with authority, “when people die, and nobody marries anybody else, especially if it is a prince and princess.”
“A most lucid explanation,” said the old man. “I think my story will do, for the principal character dies, and there is no wedding.”
“Tell it, tell it!” cried his hearers, “and tell us also where you got it from.”
“Who knows the riches of a wood in summer?” said the old man. “In summer, do I say? In spring, in autumn, or in winter either. Who knows them? You, my children? Well, well. Better than some of your elders, perchance. You know the wood where I live; the hollow tree that will hold five children, and Queen Mab knows how many fairies. (What a castle it makes! And if it had but another floor put into it, with a sloping ladder—like one of the round towers of Ireland—what a house for children to live in! With no room for lesson-books, grown-up people, or beds!)
“You know the way to the hazel copse, and the place where the wild strawberries grow. You know where the wren sits on her eggs, and, like good children, pass by with soft steps and hushed voices, that you may not disturb that little mother. You know (for I have shown you) where the rare fern grows—a habitat happily yet unnoted in scientific pages.Wenever add its lovely fronds to our nosegays, and if we move a root it is but to plant it in another part of the wood, with as much mystery and circumspection as if we were performing some solemn druidical rite. It is to us as a king in hiding, and the places of its abode we keep faithfully secret. It will be thus held sacred by us until, with all the seeds its untouched fronds have scattered, and all the off-shoots we have propagated, it shall have become as plentiful as Heaven intends all beautiful things to be. Every one is not so scrupulous. There are certain ladies and gentlemen who picnic near my cottage in the hot weather, and who tell each other that they love a wood. Most of these good people have nevertheless neither eyes nor ears for what goes on around them, except that they hear each other, and see the cold collation. They will picnic there summer after summer, and not know whether they sit under oaks or ashes, beeches or elms. All birds sing for them the same song. Tellthemthat such a plant is rare in the neighborhood, that there are but few specimens of it, and it will not long be their fault if there are any. Does any one direct them to it, they tear it ruthlessly up, and carry it away. If by any chance a root is left, it is left so dragged and pulled and denuded of earth, that there is small chance that it will survive. Probably, also, the ravished clump dies in the garden or pot to which it is transplanted, either from neglect, or from ignorance of the conditions essential to its life; and the rare plant becomes yet rarer. Oh! without doubt they love a wood. It gives more shade than the largest umbrella, and is cheaper for summer entertainment than a tent: there you get canopy and carpet, fuel and water, shade and song, and beauty—all gratis; and these are not small matters when one has invited a large party of one’s acquaintance. There are insects, it is true, which somewhat disturb our friends; and as they do not know which sting, and which are harmless, they kill all that come within their reach, as a safe general principle. The town boys, too! They know the wood—that is to say, they know where the wild fruits grow, and how to chase the squirrel, and rob the bird’s nests, and snare the birds. Well, well, my children; to know and love a wood truly, it may be that one must live in it as I have done; and then a lifetime will scarcely reveal all its beauties, or exhaust its lessons. But even then, one must have eyes that see, and ears that hear, or one misses a good deal. It was in the wood that I heard this story that I shall tell you.”
“How did you hear it?” asked the children.
“A thrush sang it to me one night.”
“One night?” said the children. “Then you mean a nightingale.”
“I mean a thrush,” said the old man. “Do I not know the note of one bird from another? I tell you that pine tree by my cottage has a legend of its own, and the topmost branch is haunted. Must all legends be above the loves and sorrows of our self-satisfied race alone?”
“But did you really and truly hear it?” they asked.
“I heard it,” said the old man. “But, as I tell you, one hears and one hears. I don’t say that everybody would have heard it, merely by sleeping in my chamber; but, for the benefit of the least imaginative, I will assure you that it is founded on fact.”
“Begin! begin!” shouted the children.
“Once upon a time,” said the old man, “there was a young thrush, who was born in that beautiful dingle where we last planted the —— fern. His home-nest was close to the ground, but the lower one is, the less fear of falling; and in woods, the elevation at which you sleep is a matter of taste, and not of expense or gentility. He awoke to life when the wood was dressed in the pale fresh green of early summer; and believing, like other folk, that, his own home was at least the principal part of the world, earth seemed to him so happy and so beautiful an abode, that his heart felt ready to burst with joy. The ecstacy was almost pain, till wings and a voice came to him. Then, one day, when, after a gray morning, the sun came out at noon, drawing the scent from the old pine that looks in at my bedroom window, his joy burst forth, after long silence, into song, and flying upwards he sat on the topmost branch of the pine and sang as loud as he could sing to the sun and the blue sky.
“ ‘Joy! joy!’ he sang. ‘Fresh water and green woods, ambrosial sunshine and sun-flecked shade, chattering brooks and rustling leaves, glade, and sward, and dell. Lichens and cool mosses, feathered ferns and flowers. Green leaves! Green leaves! Summer! summer! summer!’
“It was monotonous, but every word came from the singer’s heart, which is not always the case. Thenceforward, though he slept near the ground, he went up every day to this pine, as to some sacred high place, and sang the same song, of which neither he nor I were ever weary.
“Let one be ever so inoffensive, however, one is not long left in peace in this world, even in a wood. The thrush sang too loudly of his simple happiness, and some boys from the town heard him and snared him, and took him away in a dirty cloth cap, where he was nearly smothered. The world is certainly not exclusively composed of sunshine, and green woods, and odorous pines. He became almost senseless during the hot dusty walk that led to the town. It was a seaport town, about two miles from the wood, a town of narrow, steep streets, picturesque old houses, and odors compounded of tar, dead fish, and many other scents less agreeable than forest perfumes. The thrush was put into a small wicker-cage in an upper room, in one of the narrowest and steepest of the streets.
“ ‘I shall die to-night,’ he piped. But he did not. He lived that night, and for several nights and days following. The boys took small care of him, however. He was often left without food, without water, and always with too little air. Two or three times they tried to sell him, but he was not bought, for no one could hear him sing. One day he was hung outside the window, and partly owing to the sun and fresh air, and partly because a woman was singing in the street, he began to carol his old song.
“The woman was a street singer. She was even paler, thinner, and more destitute-looking than such women usually are. In some past time there had been beauty and feeling in her face, but the traces of both were well-nigh gone. An indifference almost amounting to vacancy was there now, and, except that she sang, you might almost have fancied her a corpse. In her voice also there had once been beauty and feeling, and here again the traces were small indeed. From time to time, she was stopped by fits of coughing, when an ill-favored hunchback, who accompanied her on a tambourine, swore and scowled at her. She sang a song of sentiment, with a refrain about
‘Love and truth,And joys of youth—’
‘Love and truth,And joys of youth—’
‘Love and truth,And joys of youth—’
‘Love and truth,
And joys of youth—’
on which the melody dwelt and quavered as if in mockery. As she sang a sailor came down the street. His collar was very large, his trousers were very wide, his hat hung on the back of his head more as an ornament than for shelter; and he had one of the roughest faces and the gentlest hearts that ever went together since Beauty was entertained by the Beast. His hands were in his pockets, where he could feel one shilling and a penny, all the spare cash that remained to him after a friendly stroll through the town. When he saw the street singer, he stopped, pulled off his hat, and scratched his head, as was his custom when he was puzzled or interested.
“ ‘It’s no good keeping an odd penny,’ he said to himself; ‘poor thing, she looks bad enough!’ And, bringing the penny to the surface out of the depths of his pocket, he gave it to the woman. The hunchback came forward to take it, but the sailor passed him with a shove of his elbow, and gave it to the singer, who handed it over to her companion without moving a feature, and went on with her song.
“ ‘I’d like to break every bone in your ugly body,’ muttered the sailor, with a glance at the hunchback, who scowled in return.
“ ‘I shall die of this close street, and of all I have suffered,’ thought the thrush.
“ ‘Green leaves! green leaves!’ he sang, for it was the only song he knew.
“ ‘My voice is gone,’ thought the hunchback’s companion. ‘He’ll beat me again to-night; but it can’t last long:
“Love and truth,And joys of youth—” ’
“Love and truth,And joys of youth—” ’
“Love and truth,And joys of youth—” ’
“Love and truth,
And joys of youth—” ’
she sang, for that was all the song she had learned; and it was not her fault that it was inappropriate.
“But the ballad singer’s captivity was nearly at an end. When the hunchback left her that evening to spend the sailor’s penny with the few others which she had earned, he swore that when he came back he would make her sing louder than she had done all day. Her face showed no emotion, less than it did when he saw it hours after, when beauty and feeling seemed to have returned to it in the peace of death, when he came back and found the cage empty, and that the long prisoned spirit had flown away to seek the face of love and truth indeed.”
“But how about the thrush?”
“The sailor had scarcely swallowed the wrath which the hunchback had stirred in him, when his ear was caught by the song of the thrush above him.
“ ‘You sing uncommon well, pretty one,’ he said, stopping and putting his hat even farther back than usual to look up. He was one of those good people who stop a dozen times in one street, and look at everything as they go along; whereby you may see three times as much of life as other folk, but it is a terrible temptation to spend money. It was so in this instance. The sailor looked till his kindly eyes perceived that the bird was ill-cared for.
“ ‘It should have a bit of sod, itshould,’ he said, emphatically, taking his hat off, and scratching his head again; ‘and there’s not a crumb of food on board. Maybe, they don’t understand the ways of birds here. It would be a good turn to mention it.’
“With this charitable intention he entered the house, and when he left it, his pocket was empty, and the thrush was carried tenderly in his handkerchief.
“ ‘The canary died last voyage,’ he muttered apologetically to himself, ‘and the money always does go somehow or other.’
“The sailor’s hands were about three times as large and coarse as those of the boy who had carried the thrush before, but they seemed to him three times more light and tender—they were handy and kind, and this goes farther than taper fingers.
“The thrush’s new home was not in the narrow streets. It was in a small cottage in a small garden at the back of the town. The canary’s old cage was comparatively roomy, and food, water, and fresh turf were regularly supplied to him. He could see green leaves too. There was an apple tree in the garden, and two geraniums, a fuchsia, and a tea-rose in the window. Near the tea-rose an old woman sat in the sunshine. She was the sailor’s mother, and looked very like a tidily kept window plant herself. She had a little money of her own, which gave her a certain dignity, and her son was very good to her; and so she dwelt in considerable comfort, dividing her time chiefly between reading in the big Bible, knitting socks for Jack, and raising cuttings in bottles of water. She had heard of hothouses and forcing frames, but she did not think much of them. She believed a bottle of water to be the most natural, because it was the oldest method she knew of, and she thought no good came of new-fangled ways, and trying to outdo Nature.
“ ‘Slow and sure is best,’ she said, and stuck to her own system.
“ ‘What’s that, my dear?’ she asked, when the sailor came in and held up the handkerchief. He told her.
“ ‘You’re always a-laying out your money on something or other,’ said the old lady, who took the privilege of her years to be a little testy. ‘What did you give forthat?’
“ ‘A shilling, ma’am.’
“ ‘Tst! tst! tst!’ said the old lady, disapprovingly.
“ ‘Now, mother, don’t shake that cap of yours off your head,’ said the sailor. ‘What’s a shilling? If I hadn’t spent it, I should have changed it; and once change a shilling, and it all dribbles away in coppers, and you get nothing for it. But spend it in a lump, and you get something you want. That’s what I say.’
“ ‘Iwant no more pets,’ said the old lady stiffly.
“ ‘Well, you won’t be troubled with this one long,’ said her son; ‘it’ll go with me, and that’s soon enough.’
“Any allusion to his departure always melted the old lady, as Jack well knew. She became tearful, and begged him to leave the thrush with her.
“ ‘You know, my dear, I’ve always looked to your live things as if they were Christians; and loved them too (unless it was that monkey that I nevercoulddo with!) Leave it with me, my dear. I’d never bother myself with a bird on board ship, if I was you.’
“ ‘That’s because you’ve got a handsome son of your own, old lady,’ chuckled the sailor; ‘I’ve neither chick nor child, ma’am, remember, and a man must have something to look to. The bird’ll go with me.’
“And so it came to pass that just when the thrush was becoming domesticated, and almost happy at the cottage, that one morning the sailor brought him fresh turf and groundsel, besides his meal-cake, and took the cage down. And the old woman kissed the wires, and bade the bird good-bye, and prayed Heaven to bring him safe home again; and they went their way.
“The forecastle of a steamship (even of a big one) is a poor exchange for a snug cottage to any one but a sailor. To Jack, the ship was home.Hehad never lived in a wood, and carrolled in tree-tops. He preferred blue to green, and pine masts to pine trees; and he smoked his pipe very comfortably in the forecastle, whilst the ship rolled to and fro, and swung the bird’s cage above his head. To the thrush it was only an imprisonment that grew worse as time went on. Each succeeding day made him pine more bitterly for his native woods—the fresh air and green leaves, and the rest and quiet, and sweet perfumes, and pleasant sounds of country life. His turf dried up, his groundsel withered, and no more could be got. He longed even to be back with the old woman—to see the apple tree, and the window plants, and be still. The shudder of the screw, the blasts of hot air from the engine and cook’s galley, the ceaseless jangling, clanging, pumping noises, and all the indescribable smells which haunt a steamship, became more wearisome day by day. Even when the cage was hung outside, the sea breeze seemed to mock him with its freshness. The rich blue of the waters gave him no pleasure, his eyes failed with looking for green, the bitter, salt spray vexed him, and the wind often chilled him to the bone, whilst the sun shone, and icebergs gleamed upon the horizon.
“The sailor had been so kind a master, that the thrush had become deeply attached to him, as birds will; and while at the cottage he had scarcely fretted after his beloved wood. But with every hour of the voyage, home sickness came more strongly upon him, and his heart went back to the nest, and the pine-top, and the old home. When one sleeps soundly, it is seldom that one remembers one’s dreams; but when one is apt to be roused by an unexpected lurch of the ship, by the moan of a fog-whistle, or the scream of an engine, one becomes a light sleeper, and the visions of the night have a strange reality, and are easily recalled. And now the thrush always dreamt of home.
“One day he was hung outside. It was not a very fine day, but he looked drooping, and the pitying sailor brought him out, to get some air. His heart was sore with home sickness, and he watched the sea-birds skimming up and down with envious eyes. It seemed all very well for poor men, who hadn’t so much as a wing to carry them over the water, to build lumbering sea-nests, with bodies to float in the water like fish, and wings of canvas to carry them along, and to help it out with noisy steam-engines—and to endure it all. But for him, who could fly over a hundred tree-tops before a man could climb to one, it was hard to swing outside a ship, and to watch other birds use their wings, when his, which quivered to fly homewards, could only flutter against the bars. As he thought, a roll of the ship threw him forward, the wind shook the wires of the cage, and loosened the fastening; and, when the vessel righted, the cage-door swung slowly open.
“At this moment, a ray of sunshine streaked the deep blue water, and a gleaming sea-bird, which had been sitting like a tuft of foam upon a wave, rose with outstretched pinions, and soared away. It was too much. With one shrill pipe of hope, the thrush fluttered from his cage, spread his wings, and followed him.
“When the sailor found that the wind was getting up, he came to take the cage down, and then his grief was sore indeed.
“ ‘The canary died last voyage,’ he said sadly. ‘The cage was bought on a Friday, and I knew ill luck would come of it. I said so to mother; but the old lady says there’s no such thing as luck, and she’s Bible-learned, if ever a woman was. “That’s very true,” says I, “but if I’d the money for another cage, I wouldn’t use this;” and I never will again. Poor bird! it was a sweet singer.’ And he turned his face aside.
“ ‘It may have the sense to come back,’ said one of the crew. The sailor scratched his head, and shook it sadly.
“ ‘Noah’s bird came back to him, when she found no rest,’ he said, ‘but I don’t think mine will, Tom.’
“He was right. The thrush returned no more. He did not know how wide was the difference between his own strength and that of the bird he followed. The sea-fowl cut the air with wings of tenfold power; he swooped up and down, he stooped to fish, he rested on the ridges of the dancing waves, and then, with one steady flight, he disappeared, and the thrush was left alone. Other birds passed him, and flew about him, and fished, and rocked upon the waters near him, but he held steadily on. Ships passed him also, but too far away for him to rest upon; whales spouted in the distance, and strange fowl screamed; but not a familiar object broke the expanse of the cold sea. He did not know what course he was taking. He hoped against hope that he was going home. Although he was more faint and weary than he had ever yet been, he felt no pain. The intensity of his hope to reach the old wood made everything seem light; even at the last, when his wings were almost powerless, he believed that they would bear him home, and was happy. Already he seemed to rest upon the trees, the waters sounded in his ears like the rustling of leaves, and the familiar scent of the pine tree seemed to him to come upon the breeze.
“In this he was not wrong. A country of pine woods was near; and land was in sight, though too far away for him to reach it now. Not home, but yet a land of wondrous summer beauty: of woods, and flowers, and sun-flecked leaves—of sunshine more glowing than he had ever known—of larger ferns, and deeper mosses, and clearer skies—a land of balmy summer nights, where the stars shine brighter than with us, and where fireflies appear and vanish, like stars of a lower firmament, amid the trees. As the sun broke out, the scent of pines came strong upon the land breeze. A strange land, but the thrush thought it was his own.
“ ‘I smell woods,’ he chirped faintly; ‘I see the sun. This is home!’
“All round him, the noisy crest of the fresh waves seemed to carol the song he could no longer sing—‘Home, home! fresh water and green woods, ambrosial sunshine and sun-flecked shade, chattering brooks and rustling leaves, glade and sward and dell, lichens and cool mosses, feathered ferns and flowers. Green leaves! green leaves! Summer! summer! summer!’
“The slackened wings dropped, the dying eyes looked landward, and then closed. But even as he fell, he believed himself sinking to rest on Mother Earth’s kindly bosom, and he did not know it, when the cold waves buried him at sea.”
“Oh, then, hediddie!” cried the children, who thought they were tired of stories that end happily, yet, when they heard it, liked a sad ending no better than other children do (in which, by-the-by, we hold them to be in the right, and can hardly forgive ourselves for chronicling this “ower true tale”).
“Yes,” said the old man, “he died; but it is said that the sweet dingle which was his home—forsaken by the nightingale—is regarded by birds as men regard a haunted house; for that at still summer midnight, when the other thrushes sleep, a shadowy form, more like a skeleton leaf than a living bird, swings upon the tall tree-tops where he sat of old, and, rapt in a happy ecstacy, sings a song more sweet and joyous than thrush ever sang by day.”
“Have you heard it?” asked the children.
The old man nodded. But not another word would he say. The children, however, forthwith began to lay plans for getting into the wood some midsummer night, to test with their own ears the truth of his story, and to hear the spectre thrush’s song. Whether the authorities permitted the expedition, and if not, whether the young people baffled their vigilance—whether they heard the song, and if so, whether they understood it—we are not empowered to tell here.