Part 8 (1/2)
”Papa, papa, don't; I would rather live in the beech tree in the forest than in a palace. I'll be a sailor.”
His father bent down, and took Harry's hand in his. ”Wouldn't you like to stay at home and help your papa, when he grows old, to farm, and take your poor old mother to church every Sunday on your arm?”
”If you wished it very much, papa; but you see, papa--”
The boy ceased speaking, and gazed into the fire for fully a minute.
Then up he jumped and clapped his hands.
”Ha?” he laughed, ”I have it, dear papa. I have it. I'll do both.”
”Both what?”
”Why, I'll go to sea first, and visit all kinds of strange places and strange countries, and kill, oh! such lots of lions and tigers and savages; and then, papa, come back and help you to farm, and take my mamma to church. Isn't it fun?”
His father laughed, and took up his pipe. Shouldn't wonder, he thought to himself, but there may be some little truth in that old saying: ”The child is the father of the man.”
Book 1--CHAPTER FIVE.
THE STORY THAT THE SWALLOW TOLD.
That garden and that bungalow was a continual source of delight to young Harry. All the improvements which he was constantly carrying out inside the room itself, he planned and executed without a.s.sistance, but Andrew the joiner used to come up of an evening pretty frequently, and give him advice about the garden. So it flourished, and was very beautiful.
Andrew was often out and about the country doing odd jobs at the residences of the gentry, and whenever he could beg a root of some rare plant or flower he did so, and brought it straight home to the young laird, as he called Harry.
And Harry would give him snuff.
Not, mind you, that it was for sake of the snuff that Andrew did these little kindnesses to Harry. Truth is he dearly loved the boy.
A harum-scarum sort of a young man was Andrew, and there were people in the parish who said he was only half-witted, but this was all nonsense.
Andrew came out with droll sayings at times--he was an original, and that is next door to a genius; but the truth is he had more wit and a deal more brains than many, or most of his detractors.
Andrew was tall and lank, and not an over-graceful walker, but he had a kind face of his own and black beads of eyes, round which smiles were nearly always dancing, and it did not take much to make Andrew laugh right out. A right merry guffaw it was too. Sometimes it made the dogs bark, and the c.o.c.ks all crow, and the peac.o.c.k scream like a thousand cats all knocked into one. That is the kind of young man Andrew was.
He came from the low country, and spoke a trifle broad. But that did not matter, his heart was as good as any Highlander's.
Harry and his friend frequently went to the forest together, but never again near Towsie's gate, because the boy had promised not to tease the bull any more. A promise is a sacred thing, and Harry knew this. The boy had a hundred friends in the forest. Yes, and far more.
For he loved nature.
And there was not a bush or tree he did not know all about: when they budded, when they broke into leaf, and even when those leaves would fade and fall and die.
There was not a flower he did not know, nor a bird he could not recognise by name, by note or song, by its nest or by its eggs.
He was no wanton nest-robber, though; a boy who is so has no manliness or fairness or gentlemanly feeling about him. Harry never robbed a nest, but more than once he pitched into other boys for doing so, and fought st.u.r.dy battles in the forest in defence of his friends the birds.
Did you ever notice, dear reader, what a sweet sweet song that of the house-martin is? With its coat of dusky black, the little crimson blush on its breast, and its graceful form, the martin is a charming bird altogether. But its song is to my ears ineffably sweet.
It is not a loud song, and the bird always sits down to sing. It is not loud for this reason: away in the wilds of Africa, where this birdie frequently goes, there are so many enemies about that to sing very loudly would lead to the discovery of its whereabouts, and it would probably be killed and devoured.
For this very reason many of the birds in Africa sing not at all. Gay and lovely are they even as the flowers, the glorious flowers that adorn the hillside and forest and plain, but silently they flit from bough to bough.