Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men Read online

  CHAPTER II.

  That summer--I mean the summer when I had seven--we had the mostcharming home imaginable. It was in a wood, and on that side of the woodwhich is farthest from houses and highroads. Here it was bounded by abrook, and beyond this lay a fine pasture field.

  There are fields and fields. I never wish to know a better field thanthis one. I seldom go out much till the evening, but if business shouldtake one along the hedge in the heat of the sun, there are as juicy andrefreshing crabs to be picked up under a tree about half-way down thesouth side, as the thirstiest creature could desire.

  And when the glare and drought of midday have given place to the mildtwilight of evening, and the grass is refreshingly damped with dew, andscents are strong, and the earth yields kindly to the nose, what beetlesand lob-worms reward one's routing!

  I am convinced that the fattest and stupidest slugs that live, live nearthe brook. I never knew one who found out I was eating him, till he washalf-way down my throat. And just opposite to the place where Ifurnished your dear mother's nest, is a small plantation of burdocks, onthe underside of which stick the best flavoured snails I am acquaintedwith, in such inexhaustible quantities, that a hedgehog might havefourteen children in a season, and not fear their coming short ofprovisions.

  And in the early summer, in the long grass on the edge of the wood--butno! I will not speak of it.

  My dear children, my seven dear children, may you never know what it isto taste a pheasant's egg--to taste several pheasant's eggs, and to eatthem, shells and all.

  There are certain pleasures of which a parent may himself have partaken,but which, if he cannot reconcile them with his ideas of safety andpropriety, he will do well not to allow his children even to hear of. Ido not say that I wish I had never tasted a pheasant's egg myself, but,when I think of traps baited with valerian, of my great-uncle'sgreat-coat nailed to the keeper's door, of the keeper's heavy-heeledboots, and of the impropriety of poaching, I feel, as a father, that itis desirable that you should never know that there are such things aseggs, and then you will be quite happy without them.

  But it was not the abundant and varied supply of food which haddetermined my choice of our home: it was not even because no woodlandbower could be more beautiful,--because the coppice foliage was freshand tender overhead, and the old leaves soft and elastic to the pricklesbelow,--because the young oaks sheltered us behind, and we had acharming outlook over the brook in front, between a gnarled alder and ayoung sycamore, whose embracing branches were the lintel of our doorway.

  No. I chose this particular spot in this particular wood, because I hadreason to believe it to be a somewhat neglected bit of what men call"property,"--because the bramble bushes were unbroken, the fallen leavesuntrodden, the hyacinths and ragged-robins ungathered by human feet andhands,--because the old fern-fronds faded below the fresh greenplumes,--because the violets ripened seed,--because the trees wereunmarked by woodmen and overpopulated with birds, and the water-rat satup in the sun with crossed paws and without a thought ofdanger,--because, in short, no birds'-nesting, fern-digging,flower-picking, leaf-mould-wanting, vermin-hunting creatures ever camehither to replenish their ferneries, gardens, cages, markets, andmuseums.

  My feelings can therefore be imagined when I was roused from anafternoon nap one warm summer's day by the voices of men and women.Several possibilities came into my mind, and I imparted them to my wife.

  "They may be keepers."

  "They may be poachers."

  "They may be boys birds'-nesting."

  "They may be street-sellers of ferns, moss, and so forth."

  "They may be collectors of specimens."

  "They may be pic-nic-ers--people who bring salt twisted up in a bit ofpaper with them, and leave it behind when they go away. Don't let thechildren touch it!"

  "They may be--and this is the worst that could happen--men collectingfrogs, toads, newts, snails, _and hedgehogs_ for the London markets. Wemust keep very quiet. They will go away at sunset."

  I was quite wrong, and when I heard the slow wheels of a cart I knewit. They were none of these things, and they did not go away. They weretravelling tinkers, and they settled down and made themselves at homewithin fifty yards of mine.

  My nerves have never been strong since that day under the furze bush. Myfirst impulse was to roll myself up so tightly that I got the cramp,whilst every spine on my back stood stiff with fright. But after a timeI recovered myself, and took counsel with Mrs. Hedgehog.

  "Two things," said she, "are most important. We must keep the childrenfrom gadding, and we must make them hold their tongues."

  "They never can be so foolish as to wish to quit your side, my dear, inthe circumstances," said I. But I was mistaken.

  I know nothing more annoying to a father who has learned the danger ofindiscreet curiosity in his youth, than to find his sons apparentlyquite uninfluenced by his valuable experience.

  "What are tinkers like?" was the first thing said by each one of theseven on the subject.

  "They are a set of people," I replied, in a voice as sour as a greencrab, "who if they hear us talking, or catch us walking abroad, willkill your mother and me, and temper up two bits of clay and roll us upin them. Then they will put us into a fire to bake, and when the clayturns red they will take us out. The clay will fall off and our coatswith it. What remains they will eat--as we eat snails. You seven will beflitted. That is, you will be pegged to the ground till you grow big."(I thought it well not to mention the bread and milk.) "Then they willkill and bake and eat you in the same fashion."

  I think this frightened the children; but they would talk about thetinkers, though they dared not go near them.

  "The best thing you can do," said Mrs. Hedgehog, "is to tell them astory to keep them quiet. You can modulate your own voice, and stop ifyou hear the tinkers."

  Hereupon I told them a story (a very old one) of the hedgehog who ran arace with a hare, on opposite sides of a hedge, for the wager of a louisd'or and a bottle of brandy. It was a great favourite with them.

  "The moral of the tale, my dear children," I was wont to say, "is, thatour respected ancestor's head saved his heels, which is never the casewith giddy-pated creatures like the hare."

  "Perhaps it was a very young hare," said Mrs. Hedgehog, who is amiable,and does not like to blame any one if it can be avoided.

  "I don't think it can have been a _very_ young hare," said I, "or thehedgehog would have eaten him instead of outwitting him. As it was, heplaced himself and Mrs. Hedgehog at opposite ends of the course. Thehare started on one side of the hedge and the hedgehog on the other.Away went the hare like the wind, but Mr. Hedgehog took three steps andwent back to his place. When the hare reached his end of the hedge, Mrs.Hedgehog, from the other side, called out, 'I'm here already.' Her voiceand her coat were very like her husband's, and the hare was notobservant enough to remark a slight difference of size and colour. Themoral of which is, my dear children, that one must use his eyes as wellas his legs in this world. The hare tried several runs, but there wasalways a hedgehog at the goal when he got there. So he gave in at last,and our ancestors walked comfortably home, taking the louis d'or and thebottle of brandy with them."

  "What is a louis d'or?" cried three of my children; and "What isbrandy?" asked the other four.

  "I smell valerian," said I; on which they poked out their seven noses,and I ran at them with my spines, for a father who is not anEncyclopaedia on all fours must adopt _some_ method of checking theinquisitiveness of the young.

  When grown-up people desire information or take an interest in theirneighbours, this, of course, is another matter. Mrs. Hedgehog and I hadnever seen tinkers, and we resolved to take an early opportunity someevening of sending the seven urchins down to the burdock plantations topick snails, whilst we paid a cautious visit to the tinker camp.

  But mothers are sad fidgets, and anxious as Mrs. Hedgehog was to gratifyher curiosity, she kept putting off our expedition till the children'sspines s
hould be harder; so I made one or two careful ones by myself,and told her all the news on my return.