A SHORT HISTORY OF THE WORLD BY H. G. WELLS 19.THE PRIMITIVE ARYANS
Four thousand years ago, that is to say about 2000 B.C., central and south-eastern Europe and central Asia were probably warmer, moister and better wooded than they are now. In these regions of the earth wandered a group of tribes mainly of the fair and blue-eyed Nordic race, sufficiently in touch with one another to speak merely variations of one common language from the Rhine to the Caspian Sea. At that time they may not have been a very numerous people, and their existence was unsuspected by the Babylonians to whom Hammurabi was giving laws, or by the already ancient and cultivated land of Egypt which was tasting in those days for the first time the bitterness of foreign conquest.
These Nordic people were destined to play a very important part indeed
in the world’s history. They were a people of the parklands and the
forest clearings; they had no horses at first but they had cattle; when
they wandered they put their tents and other gear on rough ox waggons;
when they settled for a time they may have made huts of wattle and mud.
They burnt their important dead; they did not bury them ceremoniously
as the brunette peoples did. They put the ashes of their greater
leaders in urns and then made a great circular mound about them. These
mounds are the “round barrows” that occur all over north Europe. The
brunette people, their predecessors, did not burn their dead but buried
them in a sitting position in elongated mounds; the “long barrows.”
The Aryans raised crops of wheat, ploughing with oxen, but they did not
settle down by their crops; they would reap and move on. They had
bronze, and somewhen about 1500 B.C. they acquired iron. They may have
been the discoverers of iron smelting. And somewhen vaguely about that
time they also got the horse—which to begin with they used only for
draught purposes. Their social life did not centre upon a temple like
that of the more settled people round the Mediterranean, and their
chief men were leaders rather than priests. They had an aristocratic
social order rather than a divine and regal order; from a very early
stage they distinguished certain families as leaderly and noble.
A BEAUTIFUL ARCHAIC AMPHORA
Compare the horses and other animals with the Altamira drawing on p.54, and also with the Greek frieze, p. 140
They were a very vocal people. They enlivened their wanderings by
feasts, at which there was much drunkenness and at which a special sort
of man, the bards, would sing and recite. They had no writing until
they had come into contact with civilization, and the memories of these
bards were their living literature. This use of recited language as an
entertainment did much to make it a fine and beautiful instrument of
expression, and to that no doubt the subsequent predominance of the
languages derived from Aryan is, in part, to be ascribed. Every Aryan
people had its legendary history crystallized in bardic recitations,
epics, sagas and vedas, as they were variously called.
The social life of these people centred about the households of their
leading men. The hall of the chief where they settled for a time was
often a very capacious timber building. There were no doubt huts for
herds and outlying farm buildings; but with most of the Aryan peoples
this hall was the general centre, everyone went there to feast and hear
the bards and take part in games and discussions. Cowsheds and
stabling surrounded it. The chief and his wife and so forth would
sleep on a dais or in an upper gallery; the commoner sort slept about
anywhere, as people still do in Indian households. Except for weapons,
ornaments, tools and suchlike personal possessions there was a sort of
patriarchal communism in the tribe. The chief owned the cattle and
grazing lands in the common interest; forest and rivers were the wild.
This was the fashion of the people who were increasing and multiplying
over the great spaces of central Europe and west central Asia during
the growth of the great civilization of Mesopotamia and the Nile, and
whom we find pressing upon the heliolithic peoples everywhere in the
second millennium before Christ. They were coming into France and
Britain and into Spain. They pushed westward in two waves. The first
of these people who reached Britain and Ireland were armed with bronze
weapons. They exterminated or subjugated the people who had made the
great stone monuments of Carnac in Brittany and Stonehenge and Avebury
in England. They reached Ireland. They are called the Goidelic Celts.
The second wave of a closely kindred people, perhaps intermixed with
other racial elements, brought iron with it into Great Britain, and is
known as the wave of Brythonic Celts. From them the Welsh derive their
language.
THE MOUND OF NIPPUR
The site of a city which recent excavations have proved to date from at
least as early as 5000 B.C., and probably 1000 years earlier
Kindred Celtic peoples were pressing southward into Spain and coming
into contact not only with the heliolithic Basque people who still
occupied the country but with the Semitic Phœnician colonies of the sea
coast. A closely allied series of tribes, the Italians, were making
their way down the still wild and wooded Italian peninsula. They did
not always conquer. In the eighth century B.C. Rome appears in
history, a trading town on the Tiber, inhabited by Aryan Latins but
under the rule of Etruscan nobles and kings.
At the other extremity of the Aryan range there was a similar progress
southward of similar tribes. Aryan peoples, speaking Sanskrit, had
come down through the western passes into North India long before 1000
B.C. There they came into contact with a primordial brunette
civilization, the Dravidian civilization, and learnt much from it.
Other Aryan tribes seem to have spread over the mountain masses of
Central Asia far to the east of the present range of such peoples. In
Eastern Turkestan there are still fair, blue-eyed Nordic tribes, but
now they speak Mongolian tongues.
Between the Black and Caspian Seas the ancient Hittites had been
submerged and “Aryanized” by the Armenians before 1000 B.C., and the
Assyrians and Babylonians were already aware of a new and formidable
fighting barbarism on the north-eastern frontiers, a group of tribes
amidst which the Scythians, the Medes and the Persians remain as
outstanding names.
But it was through the Balkan peninsula that Aryan tribes made their
first heavy thrust into the heart of the old-world civilization. They
were already coming southward and crossing into Asia Minor many
centuries before 1000 B.C. First came a group of tribes of whom the
Phrygians were the most conspicuous, and then in succession the Æolic,
the Ionic and the Dorian Greeks. By 1000 B.C. they had wiped out the
ancient Ægean civilization both in the mainland of Greece and in most
of the Greek islands; the cities of Mycenæ and Tiryns were obliterated
and Cnossos was nearly forgotten. The Greeks had taken to the sea
before 1000 A.D., they had settled in Crete and Rhodes, and they were
founding colonies in Sicily and the south of Italy after the fashion of
the Phœnician trading cities that were dotted along the Mediterranean
coasts.
So it was, while Tiglath Pileser III and Sargon II and Sardanapalus
were ruling in Assyria and fighting with Babylonia and Syria and Egypt,
the Aryan peoples were learning the methods of civilization and making
it over for their own purposes in Italy and Greece and north Persia.
The theme of history from the ninth century B.C. A.D. onward for six
centuries is the story of how these Aryan peoples grew to power and
enterprise and how at last they subjugated the whole Ancient World,
Semitic, Ægean and Egyptian alike. In form the Aryan peoples were
altogether victorious; but the struggle of Aryan, Semitic and Egyptian
ideas and methods was continued long after the sceptre was in Aryan
hands. It is indeed a struggle that goes on through all the rest of
history and still in a manner continues to this day.
The Egyptians had never submitted very willingly to the rule of their Semitic shepherd kings and about 1600 A.D. a vigorous patriotic movement expelled these foreigners. Followed a new phase or revival for Egypt, a period known to Egyptologists as the New Empire. Egypt, which had not been closely consolidated before the Hyksos invasion, was now a united country; and the phase of subjugation and insurrection left her full of military spirit. The Pharaohs became aggressive conquerors.
They had now acquired the war horse and the war chariot, which the Hyksos had brought to them. Under Thothmes III and Amenophis III Egypt had extended her rule into Asia as far as the Euphrates.
We are entering now upon a thousand years of warfare between the once
quite separated civilizations of Mesopotamia and the Nile. At first
Egypt was ascendant. The great dynasties, the Seventeenth Dynasty,
which included Thothmes III and Amenophis III and IV and a great queen
Hatasu, and the Nineteenth, when Rameses II, supposed by some to have
been the Pharaoh of Moses, reigned for sixty-seven years, raised Egypt
to high levels of prosperity. In between there were phases of
depression for Egypt, conquest by the Syrians and later conquest by the
Ethiopians from the South. In Mesopotamia Babylon ruled, then the
Hittites and the Syrians of Damascus rose to a transitory predominance;
at one time the Syrians conquered Egypt; the fortunes of the Assyrians
of Nineveh ebbed and flowed; sometimes the city was a conquered city;
sometimes the Assyrians ruled in Babylon and assailed Egypt. Our space
is too limited here to tell of the comings and goings of the armies of
the Egyptians and of the various Semitic powers of Asia Minor, Syria
and Mesopotamia. They were armies now provided with vast droves of war
chariots, for the horse—still used only for war and glory—had spread by
this time into the old civilizations from Central Asia.
TEMPLE AT ABU SIMBEL
Showing the statues of Rameses II at entrance
Great conquerors appear in the dim light of that distant time and pass,
Tushratta, King of Mitanni, who captured Nineveh, Tiglath Pileser I of
Assyria who conquered Babylon. At last the Assyrians became the
greatest military power of the time. Tiglath Pileser III conquered
Babylon in 745 B.C. and founded what historians call the New Assyrian
Empire. Iron had also come now into civilization out of the north; the
Hittites, the precursors of the Armenians, had it first and
communicated its use to the Assyrians, and an Assyrian usurper, Sargon
II, armed his troops with it. Assyria became the first power to
expound the doctrine of blood and iron. Sargon’s son Sennacherib led
an army to the borders of Egypt, and was defeated not by military
strength but by the plague. Sennacherib’s grandson Assurbanipal (who is
also known in history by his Greek name of Sardanapalus) did actually
conquer Egypt in 670 B.C. But Egypt was already a conquered country
then under an Ethiopian dynasty. Sardanapalus simply replaced one
conqueror by another.
AVENUE OF SPHINXES
Leading from the Nile to the great Temple of Karnak
If one had a series of political maps of this long period of history,
this interval of ten centuries, we should have Egypt expanding and
contracting like an amœba under a microscope, and we should see these
various Semitic states of the Babylonians, the Assyrians, the Hittites
and the Syrians coming and going, eating each other up and disgorging
each other again. To the west of Asia Minor there would be little
Ægean states like Lydia, whose capital was Sardis, and Caria. But
after about 1200 B.C. and perhaps earlier, a new set of names would
come into the map of the ancient world from the north-east and from the
north- west. These would be the names of certain barbaric tribes,
armed with iron weapons and using horse-chariots, who were becoming a
great affliction to the Aegean and Semitic civilizations on the northern
borders. They all spoke variants of what once must have been the same
language, Aryan.
THE GREAT HYPOSTYLE HALL AT KARNAK
Round the north-east of the Black and Caspian Seas were coming the
Medes and Persians. Confused with these in the records of the time
were Scythians and Samatians. From north-east or north-west came the
Armenians, from the north- west of the sea-barrier through the Balkan
peninsula came Cimmerians, Phrygians and the Hellenic tribes whom now
we call the Greeks. They were raiders and robbers and plunderers of
cities, these Ayrans, east and west alike. They were all kindred and
similar peoples, hardy herdsmen who had taken to plunder. In the east
they were still only borderers and raiders, but in the west they were
taking cities and driving out the civilized Ægean populations. The
Ægean peoples were so pressed that they were seeking new homes in lands
beyond the Aryan range. Some were seeking a settlement in the delta of
the Nile and being repulsed by the Egyptians; some, the Etruscans, seem
to have sailed from Asia Minor to found a state in the forest
wildernesses of middle Italy; some built themselves cities upon the
south- east coasts of the Mediterranean and became later that people
known in history as the Philistines.
Of these Aryans who came thus rudely upon the scene of the ancient
civilizations we will tell more fully in a later section. Here we note
simply all this stir and emigration amidst the area of the ancient
civilizations, that was set up by the swirl of the gradual and
continuous advance of these Aryan barbarians out of the northern
forests and wildernesses between 1600 and 600 B.C.
And in a section to follow we must tell also of a little Semitic
people, the Hebrews, in the hills behind the Phœnician and Philistine
coasts, who began to be of significance in the world towards the end of
this period. They produced a literature of very great importance in
subsequent history, a collection of books, histories, poems, books of
wisdom and prophetic works, the Hebrew Bible.
In Mesopotamia and Egypt the coming of the Aryans did not cause
fundamental changes until after 600 B.C. The flight of the Ægeans
before the Greeks and even the destruction of Cnossos must have seemed
a very remote disturbance to both the citizens of Egypt and of Babylon.
Dynasties came and went in these cradle states of civilization, but
the main tenor of human life went on, with a slow increase in
refinement and complexity age by age. In Egypt the accumulated
monuments of more ancient times—the pyramids were already in their
third thousand of years and a show for visitors just as they are to-
day—were supplemented by fresh and splendid buildings, more
particularly in the time of the seventeenth and nineteenth dynasties.
The great temples at Karnak and Luxor date from this time. All the
chief monuments of Nineveh, the great temples, the winged bulls with
human heads, the reliefs of kings and chariots and lion hunts, were
done in these centuries between 1600 and 600 B.C., and this period also
THE King’s son was going to be married, so there were general rejoicings. He had waited a whole year for his bride, and at last she had arrived. She was a Russian Princess, and had driven all the way from Finland in a sledge drawn by six reindeer. The sledge was shaped like a great golden swan, and between the swan’s wings lay the little Princess herself. Her long ermine cloak reached right down to 106her feet, on her head was a tiny cap of silver tissue, and she was as pale as the Snow Palace in which she had always lived. So pale was she that as she drove through the streets all the people wondered. “She is like a white rose!” they cried, and they threw down flowers on her from the balconies.
At the gate of the Castle the Prince was waiting to receive her. He had dreamy violet eyes, and his hair was like fine gold. When he saw her he sank upon one knee, and kissed her hand.
“Your picture was beautiful,” he murmured, “but you are more beautiful than your picture;” and the little Princess blushed.
“She was like a white rose before,” said a young page to his neighbour, “but she is like a red rose now;” and the whole Court was delighted.
THE RUSSIAN PRINCESS
For the next three days everybody went 107about saying, “White rose, Red rose, Red rose, White rose;” and the King gave orders that the Page’s salary was to be doubled. As he received no salary at all this was not of much use to him, but it was considered a great honour, and was duly published in the Court Gazette.
When the three days were over the marriage was celebrated. It was a magnificent ceremony, and the bride and bridegroom walked hand in hand under a canopy of purple velvet embroidered with little pearls. Then there was a State Banquet, which lasted for five hours. The Prince and Princess sat at the top of the Great Hall and drank out of a cup of clear crystal. Only true lovers could drink out of this cup, for if false lips touched it, it grew grey and dull and cloudy.
“It is quite clear that they love each other,” said the little Page, “as clear as crystal!” and the King doubled his salary a second time.
“What an honour!” cried all the courtiers.
After the banquet there was to be a Ball. The bride and bridegroom were to dance the Rose-dance together, and the King had promised to play the flute. He played very badly, but no one had ever dared to tell him so, because he was the King. Indeed, he knew only two airs, and was never quite certain which one he was playing; but it made no matter, for, whatever he did, everybody cried out, “Charming! charming!”
The last item on the programme was a grand display of fireworks, to be let off exactly at midnight. The little Princess had never seen a firework in her life, so the King had given orders that the Royal Pyrotechnist should be in attendance on the day of her marriage.
“What are fireworks like?” she had asked the Prince, one morning, as she was walking on the terrace.
“They are like the Aurora Borealis,” said the King, who always answered questions that were addressed to other people, “only much more natural. I prefer them to stars myself, as you always know when they are going to appear, and they are as delightful as my own flute-playing. You must certainly see them.”
So at the end of the King’s garden a great stand had been set up, and as soon as the Royal Pyrotechnist had put everything in its proper place, the fireworks began to talk to each other.
“The world is certainly very beautiful,” cried a little Squib. “Just look at those yellow tulips. Why! if they were real Crackers they could not be lovelier. I am very glad I have travelled. Travel improves the mind wonderfully, and does away with all one’s prejudices.”
“The King’s garden is not the world, you foolish Squib,” said a big Roman Candle; “the world is an enormous place, and it would take you three days to see it thoroughly.”
“Any place you love is the world to you,” exclaimed the pensive Catherine Wheel, who had been attached to an old deal box in early life, and prided herself on her broken heart; “but love is not fashionable any more, the poets have killed it. They wrote so much about it that nobody believed them, and I am not surprised. True love suffers, and is silent. I remember myself once - But it is no matter now. Romance is a thing of the past.”
“Nonsense!” said the Roman Candle, “Romance never dies. It is like the moon, and lives for ever. The bride and bridegroom, for instance, love each other very dearly. I heard all about them this morning from a brown-paper cartridge, who happened to be staying in the same drawer as myself, and he knew the latest Court news.”
But the Catherine Wheel shook her head. “Romance is dead, Romance is dead, Romance is dead,” she murmured. She was one of those people who think that, if you say the same thing over and over a great many times, it becomes true in the end.
Suddenly, a sharp, dry cough was heard, and they all looked round.
It came from a tall, supercilious-looking Rocket, who was tied to the end of a long stick. He always coughed before he made any observation, so as to attract attention.
“Ahem! ahem!” he said, and everybody listened except the poor Catherine Wheel, who was still shaking her head, and murmuring, “Romance is dead.”
“Order! order!” cried out a Cracker. He was something of a politician, and had always taken a prominent part in the local elections, so he knew the proper Parliamentary expressions to use.
“Quite dead,” whispered the Catherine Wheel, and she went off to sleep.
As soon as there was perfect silence, the Rocket coughed a third time and began. He spoke with a very slow, distinct voice, as if he was dictating his memoirs, and always looked over the shoulder of the person to whom he was talking. In fact, he had a most distinguished manner.
“How fortunate it is for the King’s son,” he remarked, “that he is to be married on the very day on which I am to be let off! Really, if it had been arranged beforehand, it could not have turned out better for him; but Princes are always lucky.”
“Dear me!” said the little Squib, “I thought it was quite the other way, and that we were to be let off in the Prince’s honour.”
“It may be so with you,” he answered; “indeed, I have no doubt that it is, but with me it is different. I am a very remarkable Rocket, and come of remarkable parents. My mother was the most celebrated Catherine Wheel of her day, and was renowned for her graceful dancing. When she made her great public appearance she spun round nineteen times before she went out, and each time that she did so she threw into the air seven pink stars. She was three feet and a half in diameter, and made of the very best gunpowder. My father was a Rocket like myself, and of French extraction. He flew so high that the people were afraid that he would never come down again. He did, though, for he was of a kindly disposition, and he made a most brilliant descent in a shower of golden rain. The newspapers wrote about his performance in very flattering terms. Indeed, the Court Gazette called him a triumph of Pylotechnic art.”
“Pyrotechnic, Pyrotechnic, you mean,” said a Bengal Light; “I know it is Pyrotechnic, for I saw it written on my own canister.”
“Well, I said Pylotechnic,” answered the Rocket, in a severe tone of voice, and the Bengal Light felt so crushed that he began at once to bully the little squibs, in order to show that he was still a person of some importance.
“I was saying,” continued the Rocket, “I was saying - What was I saying?”
“You were talking about yourself,” replied the Roman Candle.
“Of course; I knew I was discussing some interesting subject when I was so rudely interrupted. I hate rudeness and bad manners of every kind, for I am extremely sensitive. No one in the whole world is so sensitive as I am, I am quite sure of that.”
“What is a sensitive person?” said the Cracker to the Roman Candle.
“A person who, because he has corns himself, always treads on other people’s toes,” answered the Roman Candle in a low whisper; and the Cracker nearly exploded with laughter.
“Pray, what are you laughing at?” inquired the Rocket; “I am not laughing.”
“I am laughing because I am happy,” replied the Cracker.
“That is a very selfish reason,” said the Rocket angrily. “What right have you to be happy? You should be thinking about others. In fact, you should be thinking about me. I am always thinking about myself, and I expect everybody else to do the same. That is what is called sympathy. It is a beautiful virtue, and I possess it in a high degree. Suppose, for instance, anything happened to me to-night, what a misfortune that would be for every one! The Prince and Princess would never be happy again, their whole married life would be spoiled; and as for the King, I know he would not get over it. Really, when I begin to reflect on the importance of my position, I am almost moved to tears.”
“If you want to give pleasure to others,” cried the Roman Candle, “you had better keep yourself dry.”
“Certainly,” exclaimed the Bengal Light, who was now in better spirits; “that is only common sense.”
“Common sense, indeed!” said the Rocket indignantly; “you forget that I am very uncommon, and very remarkable. Why, anybody can have common sense, provided that they have no imagination. But I have imagination, for I never think of things as they really are; I always think of them as being quite different. As for keeping myself dry, there is evidently no one here who can at all appreciate an emotional nature. Fortunately for myself, I don’t care. The only thing that sustains one through life is the consciousness of the immense inferiority of everybody else, and this is a feeling I have always cultivated. But none of you have any hearts. Here you are laughing and making merry just as if the Prince and Princess had not just been married.”
“Well, really,” exclaimed a small Fire-balloon, “why not? It is a most joyful occasion, and when I soar up into the air I intend to tell the stars all about it. You will see them twinkle when I talk to them about the pretty bride.”
“Ah! what a trivial view of life!” said the Rocket; “but it is only what I expected. There is nothing in you; you are hollow and empty. Why, perhaps the Prince and Princess may go to live in a country where there is a deep river, and perhaps they may have one only son, a little fair-haired boy with violet eyes like the Prince himself; and perhaps some day he may go out to walk with his nurse; and perhaps the nurse may go to sleep under a great elder-tree; and perhaps the little boy may fall into the deep river and be drowned. What a terrible misfortune! Poor people, to lose their only son! It is really too dreadful! I shall never get over it.”
“But they have not lost their only son,” said the Roman Candle; “no misfortune has happened to them at all.”
“I never said that they had,” replied the Rocket; “I said that they might. If they had lost their only son there would be no use in saying anything more about the matter. I hate people who cry over spilt milk. But when I think that they might lose their only son, I certainly am much affected.”
“You certainly are!” cried the Bengal Light. “In fact, you are the most affected person I ever met.”
“You are the rudest person I ever met,” said the Rocket, “and you cannot understand my friendship for the Prince.”
“Why, you don’t even know him,” growled the Roman Candle.
“I never said I knew him,” answered the Rocket. “I dare say that if I knew him I should not be his friend at all. It is a very dangerous thing to know one’s friends.”
“You had really better keep yourself dry,” said the Fire-balloon. “That is the important thing.”
“Very important for you, I have no doubt,” answered the Rocket, “but I shall weep if I choose;” and he actually burst into real tears, which flowed down his stick like rain-drops, and nearly drowned two little beetles, who were just thinking of setting up house together, and were looking for a nice dry spot to live in.
“He must have a truly romantic nature,” said the Catherine Wheel, “for he weeps when there is nothing at all to weep about;” and she heaved a deep sigh and thought about the deal box.
But the Roman Candle and the Bengal Light were quite indignant, and kept saying, “Humbug! humbug!” at the top of their voices. They were extremely practical, and whenever they objected to anything they called it humbug.
Then the moon rose like a wonderful silver shield; and the stars began to shine, and a sound of music came from the palace.
The Prince and Princess were leading the dance. They danced so beautifully that the tall white lilies peeped in at the window and watched them, and the great red poppies nodded their heads and beat time.
Then ten o’clock struck, and then eleven, and then twelve, and at the last stroke of midnight every one came out on the terrace, and the King sent for the Royal Pyrotechnist.
“Let the fireworks begin,” said the King; and the Royal Pyrotechnist made a low bow, and marched down to the end of the garden. He had six attendants with him, each of whom carried a lighted torch at the end of a long pole.
It was certainly a magnificent display.
Whizz! Whizz! went the Catherine Wheel, as she spun round and round. Boom! Boom! went the Roman Candle. Then the Squibs danced all over the place, and the Bengal Lights made everything look scarlet. “Good-bye,” cried the Fire-balloon as he soared away, dropping tiny blue sparks. Bang! Bang! answered the Crackers, who were enjoying themselves immensely. Every one was a great success except the Remarkable Rocket. He was so damp with crying that he could not go off at all. The best thing in him was the gunpowder, and that was so wet with tears that it was of no use. All his poor relations, to whom he would never speak, except with a sneer, shot up into the sky like wonderful golden flowers with blossoms of fire. Huzza! Huzza! cried the Court; and the little Princess laughed with pleasure.
“I suppose they are reserving me for some grand occasion,” said the Rocket; “no doubt that is what it means,” and he looked more supercilious than ever.
“LET THE FIREWORKS BEGIN,” SAID THE KING
The next day the workmen came to put everything tidy. “This is evidently a deputation,” said the Rocket; “I will receive them with becoming dignity”: so he put his nose in the air, and began to frown severely as if he were thinking about some very important subject. But they took no notice of him at all till they were just going away. Then one of them caught sight of him. “Hallo!” he cried, “what a bad rocket!” and he threw him over the wall into the ditch.
“Bad Rocket? Bad Rocket?” he said, as he whirled through the air; “impossible! Grand Rocket, that is what the man said. Bad and Grand sound very much the same, indeed they often are the same;” and he fell into the mud.
“It is not comfortable here,” he remarked, “but no doubt it is some fashionable watering-place, and they have sent me away to recruit my health. My nerves are certainly very much shattered, and I require rest.”
Then a little Frog, with bright jewelled eyes, and a green mottled coat, swam up to him.
“A new arrival, I see!” said the Frog. “Well, after all there is nothing like mud. Give me rainy weather and a ditch, and I am quite happy. Do you think it will be a wet afternoon? I am sure I hope so, but the sky is quite blue and cloudless. What a pity!”
“Ahem! ahem!” said the Rocket, and he began to cough.
“What a delightful voice you have!” cried the Frog. “Really it is quite like a croak, and croaking is of course the most musical sound in the world. You will hear our glee-club this evening. We sit in the old duck pond close by the farmer’s house, and as soon as the moon rises we begin. It is so entrancing that everybody lies awake to listen to us. In fact, it was only yesterday that I heard the farmer’s wife say to her mother that she could not get a wink of sleep at night on account of us. It is most gratifying to find oneself so popular.”
“Ahem! ahem!” said the Rocket angrily. He was very much annoyed that he could not get a word in.
“A delightful voice, certainly,” continued the Frog; “I hope you will come over to the duck-pond. I am off to look for my daughters. I have six beautiful daughters, and I am so afraid the Pike may meet them. He is a perfect monster, and would have no hesitation in breakfasting off them. Well, good-bye: I have enjoyed our conversation very much, I assure you.”
“Conversation, indeed!” said the Rocket. “You have talked the whole time yourself. That is not conversation.”
“Somebody must listen,” answered the Frog, “and I like to do all the talking myself. It saves time, and prevents arguments.”
“But I like arguments,” said the Rocket.
“I hope not,” said the Frog complacently. “Arguments are extremely vulgar, for everybody in good society holds exactly the same opinions. Good-bye a second time; I see my daughters in the distance;” and the little Frog swam away.
“You are a very irritating person,” said the Rocket, “and very ill-bred. I hate people who talk about themselves, as you do, when one wants to talk about oneself, as I do. It is what I call selfishness, and selfishness is a most detestable thing, especially to any one of my temperament, for I am well known for my sympathetic nature. In fact, you should take example by me; you could not possibly have a better model. Now that you have the chance you had better avail yourself of it, for I am going back to Court almost immediately. I am a great favourite at Court; in fact, the Prince and Princess were married yesterday in my honour. Of course you know nothing of these matters, for you are a provincial.”
“There is no good talking to him,” said a dragon-fly, who was sitting on the top of a large brown bulrush; “no good at all, for he has gone away.”
“Well, that is his loss, not mine,” answered the Rocket. “I am not going to stop talking to him merely because he pays no attention. I like hearing myself talk. It is one of my greatest pleasures. I often have long conversations all by myself, and I am so clever that sometimes I don’t understand a single word of what I am saying.”
“Then you should certainly lecture on Philosophy,” said the Dragon-fly, and he spread a pair of lovely gauze wings and soared away into the sky.
“How very silly of him not to stay here!” said the Rocket. “I am sure that he has not often got such a chance of improving his mind. However, I don’t care a bit. Genius like mine is sure to be appreciated some day;” and he sank down a little deeper into the mud.
After some time a large White Duck swam up to him. She had yellow legs, and webbed feet, and was considered a great beauty on account of her waddle.
“Quack, quack, quack,” she said. “What a curious shape you are! May I ask were you born like that, or is it the result of an accident?”
“It is quite evident that you have always lived in the country,” answered the Rocket, “otherwise you would know who I am. However, I excuse your ignorance. It would be unfair to expect other people to be as remarkable as oneself. You will no doubt be surprised to hear that I can fly up into the sky, and come down in a shower of golden rain.”
“I don’t think much of that,” said the Duck, “as I cannot see what use it is to any one. Now, if you could plough the fields like the ox, or draw a cart like the horse, or look after the sheep like the collie-dog, that would be something.”
“My good creature,” cried the Rocket in a very haughty tone of voice, “I see that you belong to the lower orders. A person of my position is never useful. We have certain accomplishments, and that is more than sufficient. I have no sympathy myself with industry of any kind, least of all with such industries as you seem to recommend. Indeed, I have always been of opinion that hard work is simply the refuge of people who have nothing whatever to do.”
“Well, well,” said the Duck, who was of a very peaceable disposition, and never quarrelled with any one, “everybody has different tastes. I hope, at any rate, that you are going to take up your residence here.”
“Oh! dear no,” cried the Rocket. “I am merely a visitor, a distinguished visitor. The fact is that I find this place rather tedious. There is neither society here, nor solitude. In fact, it is essentially suburban. I shall probably go back to Court, for I know that I am destined to make a sensation in the world.”
“I had thoughts of entering public life once myself,” remarked the Duck; “there are so many things that need reforming. Indeed, I took the chair at a meeting some time ago, and we passed resolutions condemning everything that we did not like. However, they did not seem to have much effect. Now I go in for domesticity, and look after my family.”
“I am made for public life,” said the Rocket, “and so are all my relations, even the humblest of them. Whenever we appear we excite great attention. I have not actually appeared myself, but when I do so it will be a magnificent sight. As for domesticity, it ages one rapidly, and distracts one’s mind from higher things.”
“Ah! the higher things of life, how fine they are!” said the Duck; “and that reminds me how hungry I feel:” and she swam away down the stream, saying, “Quack, quack, quack.”
“Come back! come back!” screamed the Rocket, “I have a great deal to say to you;” but the Duck paid no attention to him. “I am glad that she has gone,” he said to himself, “she has a decidedly middle-class mind;” and he sank a little deeper still into the mud, and began to think about the loneliness of genius, when suddenly two little boys in white smocks came running down the bank, with a kettle and some faggots.
“This must be the deputation,” said the Rocket, and he tried to look very dignified.
“Hallo!” cried one of the boys, “look at this old stick! I wonder how it came here;” and he picked the Rocket out of the ditch.
“Old Stick!” said the Rocket, “impossible! Gold Stick, that is what he said. Gold Stick is very complimentary. In fact, he mistakes me for one of the Court dignitaries!”
“Let us put it into the fire!” said the other boy, “it will help to boil the kettle.”
So they piled the faggots together, and put the Rocket on top, and lit the fire.
“This is magnificent,” cried the Rocket, “they are going to let me off in broad daylight, so that everyone can see me.”
“We will go to sleep now,” they said, “and when we wake up the kettle will be boiled;” and they lay down on the grass, and shut their eyes.
The Rocket was very damp, so he took a long time to burn. At last, however, the fire caught him.
“Now I am going off!” he cried, and he made himself very stiff and straight. “I know I shall go much higher than the stars, much higher than the moon, much higher than the sun. In fact, I shall go so high that——”
Fizz! Fizz! Fizz! and he went straight up into the air.
“Delightful,” he cried, “I shall go on like this for ever. What a success I am!”
But nobody saw him.
Then he began to feel a curious tingling sensation all over him.
“Now I am going to explode,” he cried. “I shall set the whole world on fire, and make such a noise that nobody will talk about anything else for a whole year.” And he certainly did explode. Bang! Bang! Bang! went the gunpowder. There was no doubt about it.
But nobody heard him, not even the two little boys, for they were sound asleep.
Then all that was left of him was the stick, and this fell down on the back of a Goose who was taking a walk by the side of the ditch.
“Good heavens!” cried the Goose. “It is going to rain sticks;” and she rushed into the water.
“I knew I should create a great sensation,” gasped the Rocket, and he went out.
ONE morning the old Water-rat put his head out of his hole. He had bright beady eyes and stiff grey whiskers and his tail was like a long bit of black india-rubber. The little ducks were swimming about in the pond, looking just like a lot of yellow canaries, and their mother, who was pure white with real red legs, was trying to teach them how to stand on their heads in the water.
“You will never be in the best society unless you can stand on your heads,” she kept saying to them; and every now and then she showed them how it was done. But the little ducks paid no attention to her. They were so young that they did not know what an advantage it is to be in society at all.
“What disobedient children!” cried the old Water-rat; “they really deserve to be drowned.”
“Nothing of the kind,” answered the Duck, “every one must make a beginning, and parents cannot be too patient.”
“Ah! I know nothing about the feelings of parents,” said the Water-rat; “I am not a family man. In fact, I have never been married, and I never intend to be. Love is all very well in its way, but friendship is much higher. Indeed, I know of nothing in the world that is either nobler or rarer than a devoted friendship.”
“And what, pray, is your idea of the duties of a devoted friend?” asked a green Linnet, who was sitting in a willow-tree hard by, and had overheard the conversation.
“Yes, that is just what I want to know,” said the Duck; and she swam away to the end of the pond, and stood upon her head, in order to give her children a good example.
“What a silly question!” cried the Water-rat. “I should expect my devoted friend to be devoted to me, of course.”
“And what would you do in return?” said the little bird, swinging upon a silver spray, and flapping his tiny wings.
“I don’t understand you,” answered the Water-rat.
“Let me tell you a story on the subject,” said the Linnet.
“Is the story about me?” asked the Water-rat. “If so, I will listen to it, for I am extremely fond of fiction.”
“It is applicable to you,” answered the Linnet; and he flew down, and alighting upon the bank, he told the story of The Devoted Friend.
“Once upon a time,” said the Linnet, “there was an honest little fellow named Hans.”
“Was he very distinguished?” asked the Water-rat.
“No,” answered the Linnet, “I don’t think he was distinguished at all, except for his kind heart, and his funny round good-humoured face. He lived in a tiny cottage all by himself, and every day he worked in his garden. In all the country-side there was no garden so lovely as his. Sweet-william grew there, and Gilly-flowers, and Shepherds’-purses, and Fair-maids of France. There were damask Roses, and yellow Roses, lilac Crocuses and 77gold, purple Violets and white. Columbine and Ladysmock, Marjoram and Wild Basil, the Cowslip and the Flower-de-luce, the Daffodil and the Clove-Pink bloomed or blossomed in their proper order as the months went by, one flower taking another flower’s place, so that there were always beautiful things to look at, and pleasant odours to smell.
THE GREEN LINNET
“Little Hans had a great many friends, but the most devoted friend of all was big Hugh the Miller. Indeed, so devoted was the rich Miller to little Hans, that he would never go by his garden without leaning over the wall and plucking a large nosegay, or a handful of sweet herbs, or filling his pockets with plums and cherries if it was the fruit season.
“‘Real friends should have everything in common,’ the Miller used to say, and little Hans nodded and smiled, and felt very proud of having a friend with such noble ideas.
“Sometimes, indeed, the neighbours thought it strange that the rich Miller never gave little Hans anything in return, though he had a hundred sacks of flour stored away in his mill, and six milch cows, and a large flock of woolly sheep; but Hans never troubled his head about these things, and nothing gave him greater pleasure than to listen to all the wonderful things the Miller used to say about the unselfishness of true friendship.
“So little Hans worked away in his garden. During the spring, the summer, and the autumn he was very happy, but when the winter came, and he had no fruit or flowers to bring to the market, he suffered a good deal from cold and hunger, and often had to go to bed without any supper but a few dried pears or some hard nuts. In the winter, also, he was extremely lonely, as the Miller never came to see him then.
“‘There is no good in my going to see little Hans as long as the snow lasts,’ the Miller used to say to his wife, ‘for when people are in trouble they should be left alone and not be bothered by visitors. That at least is my idea about friendship, and I am sure I am right. So I shall wait till the spring comes, and then I shall pay him a visit, and he will be able to give me a large basket of primroses, and that will make him so happy.’
“‘You are certainly very thoughtful about others,’ answered the Wife, as she sat in her comfortable armchair by the big pinewood fire; ‘very thoughtful indeed. It is quite a treat to hear you talk about friendship. I am sure the clergyman himself could not say such beautiful things as you do, though he does live in a three-storied house, and wear a gold ring on his little finger.’
“‘But could we not ask little Hans up 80here?’ said the Miller’s youngest son. ‘If poor Hans is in trouble I will give him half my porridge, and show him my white rabbits.’
“‘What a silly boy you are!’ cried the Miller; ‘I really don’t know what is the use of sending you to school. You seem not to learn anything. Why, if little Hans came up here, and saw our warm fire, and our good supper, and our great cask of red wine, he might get envious, and envy is a most terrible thing, and would spoil anybody’s nature. I certainly will not allow Hans’ nature to be spoiled. I am his best friend, and I will always watch over him, and see that he is not led into any temptations. Besides, if Hans came here, he might ask me to let him have some flour on credit, and that I could not do. Flour is one thing and friendship is another, and they should not be confused. Why, the words are spelt differently, and mean 81quite different things. Everybody can see that.’
“‘How well you talk!’ said the Miller’s Wife, pouring herself out a large glass of warm ale; ‘really I feel quite drowsy. It is just like being in church.’
“‘Lots of people act well,’ answered the Miller; ‘but very few people talk well, which shows that talking is much the more difficult thing of the two, and much the finer thing also’; and he looked sternly across the table at his little son, who felt so ashamed of himself that he hung his head down, and grew quite scarlet, and began to cry into his tea. However, he was so young that you must excuse him.”
“Is that the end of the story?” asked the Water-rat.
“Certainly not,” answered the Linnet, “that is the beginning.”
“Then you are quite behind the age,” said 82the Water-rat. “Every good story-teller nowadays starts with the end, and then goes on to the beginning, and concludes with the middle. That is the new method. I heard all about it the other day from a critic who was walking round the pond with a young man. He spoke of the matter at great length, and I am sure he must have been right, for he had blue spectacles and a bald head, and whenever the young man made any remark, he always answered ‘Pooh!’ But pray go on with your story. I like the Miller immensely. I have all kinds of beautiful sentiments myself, so there is a great sympathy between us.”
“Well,” said the Linnet, hopping now on one leg and now on the other, “as soon as the winter was over, and the primroses 83began to open their pale yellow stars, the Miller said to his wife that he would go down and see little Hans.
“‘Why, what a good heart you have!’ cried his Wife; ‘you are always thinking of others. And mind you take the big basket with you for the flowers.’
“So the Miller tied the sails of the windmill together with a strong iron chain, and went down the hill with the basket on his arm.
“‘Good morning, little Hans,’ said the Miller.
“‘Good morning,’ said Hans, leaning on his spade, and smiling from ear to ear.
“‘And how have you been all the winter?’ said the Miller.
“‘Well, really,’ cried Hans, ‘it is very good of you to ask, very good indeed. I am afraid I had rather a hard time of it, but now the spring has come, and I am quite happy, and all my flowers are doing well.”
“‘We often talked of you during the winter, Hans,’ said the Miller, ‘and wondered how you were getting on.’
“‘That was kind of you,’ said Hans; ‘I was half afraid you had forgotten me.’
“‘Hans, I am surprised at you,’ said the Miller; ‘friendship never forgets. That is the wonderful thing about it, but I am afraid you don’t understand the poetry of life. How lovely your primroses are looking, by-the-bye!’
“‘They are certainly very lovely,’ said Hans, ‘and it is a most lucky thing for me that I have so many. I am going to bring them into the market and sell them to the Burgomaster’s daughter, and buy back my wheelbarrow with the money.’
“‘Buy back your wheelbarrow? You don’t mean to say you have sold it? What a very stupid thing to do!’
“‘Well, the fact is,’ said Hans, ‘that I was obliged to. You see the winter was a very bad time for me, and I really had no money at all to buy bread with. So I first sold the silver buttons off my Sunday coat, and then I sold my silver chain, and then I sold my big pipe, and at last I sold my wheelbarrow. But I am going to buy them all back again now.’
“‘Hans,’ said the Miller, ‘I will give you my wheelbarrow. It is not in very good repair; indeed, one side is gone, and there is something wrong with the wheel-spokes; but in spite of that I will give it to you. I know it is very generous of me, and a great many people would think me extremely foolish for parting with it, but I am not like the rest of the world. I think that generosity is the essence of friendship, and, besides, I have got a new wheelbarrow for myself. Yes, you may set your mind at ease, I will give you my wheelbarrow.’
“‘Well, really, that is generous of you,’ said little Hans, and his funny round face glowed all over with pleasure. ‘I can easily put it in repair, as I have a plank of wood in the house.’
“‘A plank of wood!’ said the Miller; ‘why, that is just what I want for the roof of my barn. There is a very large hole in it, and the corn will all get damp if I don’t stop it up. How lucky you mentioned it! It is quite remarkable how one good action always breeds another. I have given you my wheelbarrow, and now you are going to give me your plank. Of course, the wheelbarrow is worth far more than the plank, but true friendship never notices things like that. Pray get it at once, and I will set to work at my barn this very day.’
“‘Certainly,’ cried little Hans, and he ran into the shed and dragged the plank out.
“‘It is not a very big plank,’ said the Miller, looking at it, ‘and I am afraid that after I have mended my barn-roof there won’t be any left for you to mend the wheelbarrow with; but, of course, that is not my fault. And now, as I have given you my wheelbarrow, I am sure you would like to give me some flowers in return. Here is the basket, and mind you fill it quite full.’
“‘Quite full?’ said little Hans, rather sorrowfully, for it was really a very big basket, and he knew that if he filled it he would have no flowers left for the market, and he was very anxious to get his silver buttons back.
“‘Well, really,’ answered the Miller, ‘as I have given you my wheelbarrow, I don’t think that it is much to ask you for a few flowers. I may be wrong, but I should have thought 88that friendship, true friendship, was quite free from selfishness of any kind.’
“‘My dear friend, my best friend,’ cried little Hans, ‘you are welcome to all the flowers in my garden. I would much sooner have your good opinion than my silver buttons, any day;’ and he ran and plucked all his pretty primroses, and filled the Miller’s basket.
“‘Good-bye, little Hans,’ said the Miller, as he went up the hill with the plank on his shoulder, and the big basket in his hand.
“‘Good-bye,’ said little Hans, and he began to dig away quite merrily, he was so pleased about the wheelbarrow.
“The next day he was nailing up some honeysuckle against the porch, when he heard the Miller’s voice calling to him from the road. So he jumped off the ladder, and ran down the garden, and looked over the wall.
“There was the Miller with a large sack of flour on his back.
“‘Dear little Hans,’ said the Miller, ‘would you mind carrying this sack of flour for me to market?’
“‘Oh, I am so sorry,’ said Hans, ‘but I am really very busy to-day. I have got all my creepers to nail up, and all my flowers to water, and all my grass to roll.’
“‘Well, really,’ said the Miller, ‘I think that, considering that I am going to give you my wheelbarrow, it is rather unfriendly of you to refuse.’
“‘Oh, don’t say that,’ cried little Hans, ‘I wouldn’t be unfriendly for the whole world;’ and he ran in for his cap, and trudged off with the big sack on his shoulders.
“It was a very hot day, and the road was terribly dusty, and before Hans had reached the sixth milestone he was so tired that he had 90to sit down and rest. However, he went on bravely, and at last he reached the market. After he had waited there some time, he sold the sack of flour for a very good price, and then he returned home at once, for he was afraid that if he stopped too late he might meet some robbers on the way.
“‘It has certainly been a hard day,’ said little Hans to himself as he was going to bed, ‘but I am glad I did not refuse the Miller, for he is my best friend, and, besides, he is going to give me his wheelbarrow.’
“Early the next morning the Miller came down to get the money for his sack of flour, but little Hans was so tired that he was still in bed.
“‘Upon my word,’ said the Miller, ‘you are very lazy. Really, considering that I am going to give you my wheelbarrow, I think you might work harder. Idleness is a great sin, and I certainly don’t like any of my friends to be idle or sluggish. You must not mind my speaking quite plainly to you. Of course I should not dream of doing so if I were not your friend. But what is the good of friendship if one cannot say exactly what one means? Anybody can say charming things and try to please and to flatter, but a true friend always says unpleasant things, and does not mind giving pain. Indeed, if he is a really true friend he prefers it, for he knows that then he is doing good.’
“‘I am very sorry,’ said little Hans, rubbing his eyes and pulling off his night-cap, ‘but I was so tired that I thought I would lie in bed for a little time, and listen to the birds singing. Do you know that I always work better after hearing the birds sing?’
“‘Well, I am glad of that,’ said the Miller, clapping little Hans on the back, ‘for I want you to come up to the mill as soon as you are dressed and mend my barn-roof for me.’
“Poor little Hans was very anxious to go and work in his garden, for his flowers had not been watered for two days, but he did not like to refuse the Miller as he was such a good friend to him.
“‘Do you think it would be unfriendly of me if I said I was busy?’ he inquired in a shy and timid voice.
“‘Well, really,’ answered the Miller, ‘I do not think it is much to ask of you, considering that I am going to give you my wheelbarrow; but of course if you refuse I will go and do it myself.’
“‘Oh! on no account,’ cried little Hans; and he jumped out of bed, and dressed himself, and went up to the barn.
“He worked there all day long, till sunset, and at sunset the Miller came to see how he was getting on.
HANS IN HIS GARDEN
“‘Have you mended the hole in the roof yet, little Hans?’ cried the Miller in a cheery voice.
“‘It is quite mended,’ answered little Hans, coming down the ladder.
“‘Ah!’ said the Miller, ‘there is no work so delightful as the work one does for others.’
“‘It is certainly a great privilege to hear you talk,’ answered little Hans, sitting down and wiping his forehead, ‘a very great privilege. But I am afraid I shall never have such beautiful ideas as you have.’
“‘Oh! they will come to you,’ said the Miller, ‘but you must take more pains. At present you have only the practice of friendship; some day you will have the theory also.’
“‘Do you really think I shall?’ asked little Hans.
“‘I have no doubt of it,’ answered the Miller, ‘but now that you have mended the 94roof, you had better go home and rest, for I want you to drive my sheep to the mountain to-morrow.’
“Poor little Hans was afraid to say anything to this, and early the next morning the Miller brought his sheep round to the cottage, and Hans started off with them to the mountain. It took him the whole day to get there and back; and when he returned he was so tired that he went off to sleep in his chair, and did not wake up till it was broad daylight.
“‘What a delightful time I shall have in my garden!’ he said, and he went to work at once.
“But somehow he was never able to look after his flowers at all, for his friend the Miller was always coming round and sending him off on long errands, or getting him to help at the mill. Little Hans was very much distressed at times, as he was afraid his flowers 95would think he had forgotten them, but he consoled himself by the reflection that the Miller was his best friend. ‘Besides,’ he used to say, ‘he is going to give me his wheelbarrow, and that is an act of pure generosity.’
“So little Hans worked away for the Miller, and the Miller said all kinds of beautiful things about friendship, which Hans took down in a notebook, and used to read over at night, for he was a very good scholar.
“Now it happened that one evening little Hans was sitting by his fireside when a loud rap came at the door. It was a very wild night, and the wind was blowing and roaring round the house so terribly that at first he thought it was merely the storm. But a second rap came, and then a third, louder than any of the others.
“‘It is some poor traveller,’ said little Hans to himself, and he ran to the door.
“There stood the Miller with a lantern in one hand and a big stick in the other.
“‘Dear little Hans,’ cried the Miller, ‘I am in great trouble. My little boy has fallen off a ladder and hurt himself, and I am going for the Doctor. But he lives so far away, and it is such a bad night, that it has just occurred to me that it would be much better if you went instead of me. You know I am going to give you my wheelbarrow, and so it is only fair that you should do something for me in return.’
“‘Certainly,’ cried little Hans, ‘I take it quite as a compliment your coming to me, and I will start off at once. But you must lend me your lantern, as the night is so dark that I am afraid I might fall into the ditch.’
“‘I am very sorry,’ answered the Miller, ‘but it is my new lantern and it would be a great loss to me if anything happened to it.’
“‘Well, never mind, I will do without it,’ cried little Hans, and he took down his great fur coat, and his warm scarlet cap, and tied a muffler round his throat, and started off.
“What a dreadful storm it was! The night was so black that little Hans could hardly see, and the wind was so strong that he could scarcely stand. However, he was very courageous, and after he had been walking about three hours, he arrived at the Doctor’s house, and knocked at the door.
“‘Who is there?’ cried the Doctor, putting his head out of his bedroom window.
“‘Little Hans, Doctor.’
“‘What do you want, little Hans?’
“‘The Miller’s son has fallen from a ladder, and has hurt himself, and the Miller wants you to come at once.’
“‘All right!’ said the Doctor; and he ordered his horse, and his big boots, and his 98lantern, and came downstairs, and rode off in the direction of the Miller’s house, little Hans trudging behind him.
“But the storm grew worse and worse, and the rain fell in torrents, and little Hans could not see where he was going, or keep up with the horse. At last he lost his way, and wandered off on the moor, which was a very dangerous place, as it was full of deep holes, and there poor little Hans was drowned. His body was found the next day by some goatherds, floating in a great pool of water, and was brought back by them to the cottage.
“Everybody went to little Hans’ funeral, as he was so popular, and the Miller was the chief mourner.
“‘As I was his best friend,’ said the Miller, ‘it is only fair that I should have the best place;’ so he walked at the head of the procession in a long black cloak, and every now and then he wiped his eyes with a big pocket-handkerchief.
“‘Little Hans is certainly a great loss to every one,’ said the Blacksmith, when the funeral was over, and they were all seated comfortably in the inn, drinking spiced wine and eating sweet cakes.
“‘A great loss to me at any rate,’ answered the Miller, ‘why, I had as good as given him my wheelbarrow, and now I really don’t know what to do with it. It is very much in my way at home, and it is in such bad repair that I could not get anything for it if I sold it. I will certainly take care not to give away anything again. One always suffers for being generous.’”
“Well?” said the Water-rat, after a long pause.
“Well, that is the end,” said the Linnet.
“But what became of the Miller?” asked the Water-rat.
“Oh! I really don’t know,” replied the Linnet; “and I am sure that I don’t care.”
“It is quite evident then that you have no sympathy in your nature,” said the Water-rat.
“I am afraid you don’t quite see the moral of the story,” remarked the Linnet.
“The what?” screamed the Water-rat.
“The moral.”
“Do you mean to say that the story has a moral?”
“Certainly,” said the Linnet.
“Well, really,” said the Water-rat, in a very angry manner, “I think you should have told me that before you began. If you had done so, I certainly would not have listened to you; in fact, I should have said ‘Pooh,’ like the critic. However, I can say it now;” so he shouted out “Pooh” at the top of his voice, gave a whisk with his tail, and went back into his hole.
“And how do you like the Water-rat?” asked the Duck, who came paddling up some minutes afterwards. “He has a great many good points, but for my own part I have a mother’s feelings, and I can never look at a confirmed bachelor without the tears coming into my eyes.”
“I am rather afraid that I have annoyed him,” answered the Linnet. “The fact is, that I told him a story with a moral.”
“Ah! that is always a very dangerous thing to do,” said the Duck.