“Yes, sir,” said John Monnick, “they follows mankind everywhere. I’ve had ’em with me wherever I go.”
“For worms, Monnick, and in winter they will come for crumbs to the window sill, or pick pieces of meat and gristle from the bones inside the dog’s kennel; while in autumn time, when the flies grow sluggish and little spiders fat, where is there a better hunting-ground than the inside of a house where there is an open window, or, best of all, a church? What other bird, it may be asked, would take delight in making its way into a country church to flit about as the robin will? A sparrow would awaken at once to its sacrilegious behaviour, and beat the window-pane to escape; a robin never. On the contrary, he seems to take delight in making the little boys laugh, in impishly attracting the attention of people from the ‘secondly’ and ‘thirdly’ of the sermon.”
“Yes, sir, I’ve seed ’em pick the dog’s bones often, and I have seen ’em in a church.”
“Seen them, Monnick? Have seen them? Why, but the other day, in an old church with a regular three-decker pulpit, I saw a robin perch upon the cushion just over the parson’s head as he read the lessons, and mockingly begin to preach in song, indulging afterwards in a joyous flit round the church, out at the open door, and back again, to make a sharp snap with its bill at the flies. If, you might say, the robin bore love to man he would not play tricks in church.”
“I don’t quite see what you’re a trying to sow on me, sir, but, you being a doctor, I suppose it’s all right,” said Monnick.
“John Monnick,” said the doctor bitterly, “I am trying to give you a lesson on humbugs. Robins do not pair out of their station – out of their kind. Men do when they are wed, but the wisest do not. Robins pair with robins, not with wrens.”
“Well, sir, I never seed ’em,” said Monnick, “but that’s what they say – the robin and the wren be God’s cock and hen.”
“Stuff! Robins pair with robins. Should I, being a sparrow, pair with a swallow that flies high above me – three mullets on a field azure – flying across the blue sky.”
“Well, no, sir,” said Monnick thoughtfully; “I suppose not.”
“It would be humbug, John Monnick, humbug; and the robin is a humbug, John. As to his behaviour to his kind, it seems grievous to have to lift the veil that covers so much evil; but it must be done. What do you say to your belauded robin being one of the most sanguinary little monsters under the sun? Not merely is he a murderer of his kind, but he will commit parricide, matricide, or fratricide without the smallest provocation. Put half-a-dozen robins in an aviary, and go the next morning to see the result. I don’t say that, as in the case of the celebrated Kilkenny cats, there will be nothing left but one tail; but I guarantee that five of the robins will be dead, and the survivor in anything but the best of plumage, for a gamecock is not more pugnacious than our little friend.”
“That be true enough, sir,” said John, rubbing his back softly, “I’ve seen ’em. But you must ha’ taken a mort o’ notice of ’em, sir. I didn’t know you ever see such things.”
“You thought I dealt only in physic and lotions, John, eh? But I have noticed robins and a few other things. But about Cock Robin. It might be thought that this fighting propensity would only exist at pairing time, and that it was a question of fighting for the smiles of some fair Robinetta; but nothing of the kind: a robin will not submit to the presence of another in or on its beat, and will slay the intruder without mercy, or be slain in the attempt. It might almost be thought that the ruddy stain upon its breast-feathers was the proof-mark of some late victory, where the feathers had been imbrued in the victim’s blood; but I will not venture upon the imagery lest it should jar. It is no uncommon thing to see a couple of robins in a walk, flitting round each other with wings drooping and tails erect: they will bend and bow, and utter short, defiant notes, retreat, as if to take up more strategic positions, and, after an inordinate amount of fencing, dash in and fight till there seems to be a sort of feathery firework going off amongst the bushes; and so intent are they on their battle, so careless of man’s approach, that they may at times be picked up panting, exhausted, bleeding, and dying, holding tightly on to one another by their slender bills.”
“Yes, sir, and I’ve picked ’em up dead more’n once.”
“Ah! yes! Pace, good Doctor Watts, birds do not in their little nests agree, nor yet out of them. The old country idea is that in the autumn the young robins kill off the old: undoubtedly the strong do slay the weak. It can be often seen, and were it not so, we should have robins in plenty, instead of coming upon the solitary little fellows here and there, popping out silently like spies upon our every act. Come late autumn and wintry weather, the small birds can be seen in companies, sparrows and finches mixing up in friendly concourse; but the robin never seems to flock, but always to be comparatively scarce. He never joins their companies, though he comes in their midst to the window for wintry alms of crumbs, but when he does, as Artemus Ward would say, there is ‘a fite.’ He attacks the stranger birds all round, and audaciously takes the best pieces for himself, robins do not remain scarce from not being prolific, for you may find the nest a couple have built in an ivy tod, an old watering-pot, or in a corner of the toolshed, with five or six reddish blotchy eggs in it. They have two or three broods every season, while their brown speckled young ones, wanting in the olive and red of their ciders, are a cry familiar objects, hopping sedately about in the sunny summer-time.”
“That be all true as gorspel, sir,” said Monnick. “Why, bless you, they’ve built in my toolshed, in watering-pots, and even in my shred-bag.”
“Yes, Monnick, and now look here. I have shown what a murderer our small impostor is, and how, under his pleasant outward appearance, he has a nature that will stick at nothing for the gratification of self, even, as I must now show, at such a despicable act as theft. There are those who maintain that the robin’s mission is all for good, and that he is merely a destroyer of noxious insects, grubs, and worms; that he relieves the garden of myriads of blights, and eating, boring, and canker-producing pests. Granted: so he does, though it is very unpleasant for the unfortunate little insect that happens to be dubbed a pest to find itself within reach of that vicious bill and cavernous throat. But why cannot our young friend – for, in spite of his wickedness, we shall always call him friend for the pleasure he affords our eyes and ears, just as we wink at the private life of a great artist who gratifies the senses in his turn – but I repeat why cannot our young friend be content to ‘cry havock’ amongst the insect pests, and to peek from the dog’s basin, the pig’s trough, and the chickens’ food, and not, sit on some bare spray, or under the shadows of a thorny bush, and watch with those great earnest eyes of his till the ventilators of the glass-houses are open, and then flit – flutter – dash headlong in for a feast of grapes?”
“They do, sir, they’re as bad as the wopses. Some gardeners say as robins never touch fruit, sir, but they do.”
“Yes, John, you are right; they do, and most unmercifully. They pick out, as if by instinct, the ripest and best bunches of the great black Hambro’s, hang on to the stalks, and wherever these rich pearly black grapes have been well thinned and petted that they may grow to an abnormal size, dig dig go the wicked little beaks. If they would be content with a grape or two, and begin and finish them, or even four or five or six, it would not matter; but your robin is a sybarite in his way: he treats a grape-house as visitors with tasting orders used to treat the cellars of the docks. They did not want the wine, but they would fee the cooper, who would broach a cask here and another cask there, and all of the best, till the vinous sawdust was soaked with the waste, and the fumes produced a strange intoxicating effect. Very strange that, how intoxicating those fumes would be. Unfortunately, this juice of the grape is not fermented, and the robin goes on upon his destructive quest. Still there is one redeeming feature: he will brook no companion. One visitor at a time; two means battle royal, and flying feathers.”
John Monnick scratched one red ear, for the doctor was taking him out of his depth, and he looked more puzzled still as the speaker went on.
“To sum up, then, the robin is a compound of all that is audacious, gluttonous, vicious, cruel, and despicable; but he can sing, and his pleasant little note, mournful though it be, as it acts as harbinger of falling leaves, is as much associated with home and our native land as the bonny English rose, and that resource from chills and fogs, our own fireside. Never mind the superstitious penalties! Who is there among us who would kill a robin, or would take its nest? From earliest childhood till the days when Time’s hoar frost appears upon the hair, one greets the ruddy-breasted little rascal with a smile, and feeds him when his feathered friends and foes fall fast before the winter’s scythe. So loved is he, that in far-off foreign lands the nearest likeness to him is called a robin still. We can forgive him, and wink at all his sins, as he flits attendance where’er we go in country lane, and gladly greet him even in some suburban square; and even as I speak, I am fain to say – as his pretty little figure there greets my eye – what a nuisance it is to have to speak the truth! There, John Monnick, what do you think of that?”
“It’s very good, sir, all as I could understand of it, but there’s some as wants hearing again and diegestin’ like, to get it all well into a man, as you may say. Going sir?”
“Yes, John Monnick, I’m going to your master.”
“Ay, do, sir, and if I might make so bold to say so, if you’d talk to him like you did to me about the robins and their taking his grapes, it would interest him like, and may be do him good. I’d dearly like to see Sir James himself again. It’s my belief he ’as got something on his mind?”
“I would give something to be able to ease him, Monnick. Well, I’ll take your advice.”
“Do, sir, do. Bless me, I could stand all day and hear you talk, sir, but I must be getting on. An’,” he added, as the doctor strolled off, “it’s curious, very curious, but I s’pose it’s all true, but I don’t kind o’ like to hear a man, even if he be a gentleman, upsetting all what you’ve been taught and cherished like.”
He went on weeding for a few minutes, and then straightened himself once more.
“The robin and the wren be God’s cock and hen. Well, now I come to think of it, I never see ’em together. P’r’aps the doctor’s right.”
Volume Two – Chapter Eight.
Old John is Paternal, and Fanny Makes a Promise
“Now do give me a rose, Mr Monnick; do, please.”
“Give you a rose, my dear?” said John Monnick, pausing in his task of thinning out the superabundant growth amongst the swelling grapes. “Well, I don’t like to refuse you anything, though it do seem a shame to cut the poor things, when they look so much prettier on the trees.”
“Oh, but I like to have one to wear, Mr Monnick, to pin in my breast.”
“And then, as soon as it gets a bit faded, my dear, you chucks it away.”
“O no; not if it’s a nice one, Mr Monnick. I put it in water afterwards, and let it recover.”
“Putting things in water, ’specially masters, don’t always make ’em recover, my dear,” said the old man, picking out and snapping off a few more shoots. “Hah!” he cried, after a good sniff at the bunch of succulent pieces, and then placing one acid tendrilled scrap in his mouth, twisting it up, and munching it like some ruminating animal – “smell that, my dear; there’s a scent!” and he held out the bunch to the pretty coquettish-looking maid.
“De-licious, Mr Monnick,” said the girl, taking a long sniff at the shoots. “And now you will give me a nice pretty rosebud, won’t you?”
“I allus observe,” said the old man thoughtfully, going on with his work, “that if you want something, Fanny, you calls me Mister Monnick; but if I ask you to do anything for me, or you have an order from Sir James or my lady, it’s nothing but plain John.”
“Oh, I don’t always think to call you Mr Monnick,” said the girl archly. – “But I must go now. Do give me a nice just opening bud.”
“Well, if you’ll be a good girl, and promise only to take one, I’ll give you leave to fetch your scissors and cut a Homer.”
“What! one of those nasty common-looking little dirty pinky ones?” cried the girl. “No, thank you; I want one of those.” As she spoke, she pointed to a trellis at the end of the greenhouse, over which was trailed the abundant growth of a hook-thorned climbing rose.
“What, one o’ my Ma’shal Niels?” cried the old gardener. “I should just think not. Besides,” he added with a grim smile, “yaller wouldn’t suit your complexion.”
“Now, don’t talk stuff,” cried the girl. “Yellow does suit dark people. – Do cut me one, there’s a dear good man.”
“Yes,” said the old man; “and then, next time you get washing out your bits o’ lace and things, you’ll go hanging ’em to dry on my trained plants in the sun.”
“No; I won’t. There, I promise you I’ll never do so any more.”
“Till nex’ time. – I say, Fanny, when’s Mr Arthur going back to London?”
“I don’t know,” said the girl, rather sharply. “How can I tell?”
“Oh, I thought p’r’aps he might have been telling you last night.”
“Telling me last night!” echoed the girl. “Where should he be telling me?”
“Why, down the field-walk, to be sure, when he was a-talking to you.”
“That I’m sure he wasn’t,” cried the girl, changing colour.
“Well, he was a-wagging his chin up and down and making sounds like words; and so was you, Fanny, my dear.”
“Oh, how can you say so!”
“This way,” said the old man, facing her and speaking very deliberately. “What was he saying to you?”
“I – I wasn’t – ”
“Stop a moment,” said the old man. “Mr Arthur Prayle’s such a religious-spoken sort o’ gent, that I dessay he was giving you all sorts o’ good advice, and I’m sure he wouldn’t like you to tell a lie.”
“I’m not telling a lie; I’m not. – Oh, you wicked, deceitful, spying old thing!” she cried, bursting into tears. “How dare you come watching me!”
“I didn’t come watching you, my dear. I was down there with a pot, picking up the big grey slugs that come out o’ the field into the garden; for they feeds the ducks, and saves my plants as well. – Now, lookye here, my dear; you’re a very pretty girl, and it’s very nice to be talked to by a young man, I dare say. I never cared for it myself; but young women do.”
“How dare you speak to me like that!” cried the girl, flaming up.
“’Cause I’m an old man, and knows the ways o’ the world, my dear. Mr Arthur comes down the garden to me and gives me bits o’ religious instruction and advice like; but if he wants to give any to you, I think he ought to do it in the house, and give it to Martha Betts and cook at the same time.”
“It’s all a wicked story,” cried Fanny angrily; “and I won’t stop here to be insulted!”
“Don’t, my dear. But I’m going to walk over to your brother William’s to-night, and have a bit o’ chat with him ’bout things in general, and I thought I’d give him my opinion on the pynte.”
Fanny had reached the door of the vinery; but these words stopped her short, and she came back with her face changing from red to white and back again. “You are going to tell my brother William?”
“Yes, my dear, as is right and proper too. Sir James aren’t fit to be talked to; and it’s a thing as I couldn’t say to her ladyship. It aren’t in the doctor’s way; and if I was to so much as hint at it to Miss Raleigh, she’d snap my head off, and then send you home.”
Fanny stood staring mutely with her lips apart at the old gardener, who went on deliberately snapping out the shoots, and staring up at the roof with his head amongst the vines. One moment her eyes flashed; the next they softened and the tears brimmed in them. She made a movement towards the old man where he sat perched upon his steps calmly ruminating with his mouth full of acid shoots; then, in a fit of indignation, she shrank back, but ended by going close up to him and laying her hand upon his arm.
“Leave that now,” she said.
“Nay, nay, my lass; I’ve no time to spare. Here’s all these shoots running away with the jushe and strength as ought to go into the grapes; and the master never touches them now. It all falls upon my shoulders since he’s ill.”
“Yes, yes; you work very hard; but I want to talk to you a minute.”
“Well; there then,” he said. “Now, what is it?” and he left off his task to select a nice fresh tendril to munch.
“You – you won’t tell Brother William.”
“Ay, but I shall, lass. Why, what do it matter to you, if it was all a lie and you warn’t there?”
“But William will think it was me, Mr Monnick; and he is so particular; and – There, I’ll confess it, was me.”
“Thankye,” said the old man, with a grim smile; “but my eyes are not had enough to make a mistake.”
“But you won’t tell William?”
“It aren’t pleasant for you, my dear; but you’ll thank me for it some day.”
“But it would make such trouble. William would come over and see Mr Prayle; and you know how violent my brother can be. There’s plenty of trouble in the house without that.”
“I don’t know as William Cressy would be violent, my dear. He’s a very fine young fellow, and as good a judge o’ gardening as he be of his farm. He be very proud of his sister: and he said to me one day – ”
“William said – to you?”
“Yes, my dear, to me, over a quiet pipe, as he had along o’ me one evening in my tool-house. ‘John Monnick,’ he says, ‘our Fanny’s as pretty a little lass as ever stepped, and some day she’ll be having a chap.’”
“Having a chip!” said Fanny, with her lip curling in disgust.
“‘And that’s all right and proper, if he’s a good sort; but I’m not going to have her take up with anybody, and I’m not going to have her fooled.’”
“I wish William would mind his own business,” cried Fanny, stamping her foot. “He’s got a deal to talk about; coming and staring at a stupid housemaid.”
“Martha Betts aren’t stupid, my dear, and a housemaid’s is a very honourable situation. The first woman as ever lived in a house must have been a housemaid, just the same as the first man was a gardener. Don’t you sneer at lowly occupations. Everything as is honest is good.”
“Oh, yes, of course. But you won’t tell William?”
“I feel, my dear, as if I must,” said the old man, taking the girl’s hand, and patting it softly. “You’re a very pretty little lass, and it’s quite right that you should have a sweetheart.”
“Sweetheart, indeed!” cried Fanny in disgust,
“But that there Mr Arthur aren’t the right sort.”
“How do you know?” cried the girl defiantly.
“’Cause I’m an old man as has seen a deal of the world, my dear, and I’ve got a granddaughter just like you. I shouldn’t have thought it of Mr Arthur, and I don’t know as I shan’t speak to him about it myself.”
“Oh no, no!” cried the girl excitedly. “Pray, don’t do that.”
The old man loosed her hand to sit gazing thoughtfully before him, while the girl once more grasped his arm.
“There’s on’y one thing as would make me say I wouldn’t speak to William Cressy and Mr Arthur.”
“And what’s that?” cried the girl.
“You a-giving of me your solemn promise as you won’t let Mr Arthur talk to you again.”
“I’ll promise,” cried the girl. “Yes,” said the old man; “it’s easy enough to promise; but will you keep it?”
“Yes, yes, that I will.”
“You see he’s a gentleman, and you’re only a farmer’s daughter, my dear; and he wouldn’t think no more of you, after once he’d gone away from here; and then you’d be frettin’ your pretty little heart out.”
“Then you won’t tell Brother William?”
“Well, I won’t.”
“Nor yet speak to Mr Arthur?”
“Not this time, my dear; but if I see any more of it, I shall go straight over to William Cressy, and then he’ll do what seems best in his own eyes.”
“I think it would be far more creditable of you, gardener, if you were attending to your vines, instead of wasting your time gossiping with the maids,” said a stern sharp voice. “And as for you, Fanny, I think you have enough to do indoors.”
“If you please, ma’am, you are not my mistress,” said the girl pertly.
“No, Fanny, and never shall be; but your mistress is too much taken up with her cares to note your negligence, therefore I speak. Now go!”
A sharp answer was upon Fanny’s lips; but she checked it, and flounced out of the vinery, leaving Aunt Sophia with the gardener.
“I am surprised at you, John Monnick,” continued the old lady. “Your master is helpless now, and you take advantage of it.”
“No, ma’am, no,” said the old fellow, who would not bring the question of Fanny’s delinquency into his defence. “I’m working as steadily as I can.”
“Humph!” ejaculated Aunt Sophia. “I never saw these vines so wild before.”
“Well, they are behind, ma’am; but you see this is all extry. Sir James always done the vines himself, besides nearly all the other glass-work; and the things do run away from me a bit.”
“Yes, if you encourage the maid-servants to come and talk.”
“Yes, ma’am; shan’t occur again,” said the old fellow grimly; and he went on busily snapping out the shoots, while Aunt Sophia stalked out into the garden to meet Arthur Prayle, who was walking thoughtfully up and down one of the green walks, with his hands behind him, one holding a memorandum book, the other a pencil, with which he made a note from time to time.
Volume Two – Chapter Nine.
The Consequence of Killing Slugs
Poor James Scarlett’s garden was in fair condition, but far from being at its best. It was well attended to, but the guiding spirit was to some extent absent; and as Jack Scales walked down it one soft moist morning, feeling in anything but good spirits at the ill success that had attended his efforts, he began to think a good deal about quaint, acid-voiced Aunt Sophia, with her sharp manner, disposition to snub, and general harshness to those around.
“Poor old girl!” he said. “She has settled herself down here, where I believe she does not want to stay; and I know it is to play propriety, and for the benefit of her nephew. It was too bad to speak to her as I did, but I was out of temper with her fidgeting about me. Let me see; what did I call her? a vexatious, meddling old maid. Poor old girl! How it does seem to sting a woman of that kind. Old maid. Too bad. I suppose the woman never existed yet who did not in her early days wish to wed. They all swear they never did, and that if the opportunity had come, they would have refused it with scorn; but human nature’s human nature, especially female human nature; and it’s woman’s vocation in life to marry, be a mother, and bring up her young to replenish the earth. If it is not, I’ve never studied humanity in sickness and in health. Oh, it’s plain enough,” he went on; “there are all the natural yearnings in her youth for one to love; and the tender affection, patience, and intense passion for her young, for whom she will work and starve and die, are all in her, like so many seeds waiting to shoot and bring forth flowers – beautiful flowers. But, as it too often happens, those flowers never blossom, for the seeds have no chance to grow; and the consequence of this unnatural life is that, a woman grows up soured – disappointed – withered as it were. Often enough she is ignorant of the unnatural state of her life, but it is unnatural all the same. Then we have the acid ways, the sharp disappointed looks, the effects, in short, of the withering up of all their beautiful God-given yearnings for that most sublime of nature’s gifts – motherhood; and we thoughtless fools sneer at unmarried women, and call them old maids. Hah!” he ejaculated; “it’s too bad. I’ll beg the old lady’s pardon the first time we meet.”
Jack Scales’s meeting with Aunt Sophia came sooner than he expected, for, turning down one of the walks, he heard a rustling noise before him, and directly after a grim smile crossed his face as he saw, a short distance in front, the figure of Aunt Sophia, while at her feet were a pair of gardening gloves, and a basket filled with the weeds and dead leaves that she had been gathering.
