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"COCK 7OB1N,
AND OTHER STORIES.
“WHO KILLED
Cock ROBIN?â€
AND OTHER STORIES
LOR CHILDREN YOUNG AND OLD
TOLD IN PEN AND PENCIL
BY
F. CARRUTHERS GOULD
LONDON
“WESTMINSTER GAZETTE’
1896
Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
HIE. stories tn this little book are collected
Jrom the pages of the Patu Mati Bupcet
and the WESTMINSTER BupcEt. For permts-
ston to reprint those whith appeared in the
former journal [ am indebted to the kind
courtesy of the proprietors of the Paty MALL
GAZETTE.
F.C. G.
CHRISTMAS, 1895.
COWEN is
DEDICATION
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
THE GREAT BEETLE WAR
MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG’S CHRISTMAS DINNER
THE LITTLE JACKDAW
QUAINT PETS
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY (BY AN INDIA-
RUBBER MAN)
FIVE LITTLE PIXIES .
THE MISCHIEVOUS PUFFINS
Se Ob eee ae
“WHO KILLED COCK. ROBIN?â€
PAGE
THE VICTIM. . : : . : : : 4
JOHN SPARROW, THE ACCUSED . ; : : : 5
ARRIVAL OF THE JUDGE . : : : : ; 7
MR. JUSTICE OWL. : ; : ; . caer 3
COUNSEL FOR THE PROSECUTION. : . . 4
SIR PEREGRINE FALCON, QC. . 7°. . : ; 16
THE PRISONER CONSULTS WITH HIS SOLICITOR . » 19
MR. JAY, THE FOREMAN . : ; : : aes
MR DRAGON FLY ; : : : : ions
FATHER ROOK . : . : : : . eos]
POLICE CONSTABLE BULLFINCH . ' : : ees
JENNY WREN . . . . . : : ata
“EXTRY SPESHULS†. : : d ; : » 45
BROWN OWL, THE GRAVE DIGGER 7 . . . 47
x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
THE JURY. : : : . : : : . 52
SIR PEREGRINE ADDRESSING THE JURY . ; Pen 3
SIR HONEY BUZZARD IS NOT PLEASED : : ree S|
ACQUITTED! : ; : : : . - 59
THE GREAT BEETLE WAR.
ASSASSINATION . : : : : : . eT OG)
CONSTERNATION ; : . : : : . 70
CONSULTATION . : ; : ; : . ei 71
PROGRESSION . : , . : : ; ue] 5
INTERRUPTION . ; 79
NAVIGATION. ; : ; : : : . 83
IMMERSION : : ; ; : ; : . 88
INFORMATION . : . . . : . . 89
PROTECTION. . : : : : ° . 89
LOCOMOTION. : : : : : : 93
APPLICATION. : : . : : : = O7
INTERCESSION . ; : . : : . . I00
SUPPLICATION . : : : . . . EOL
PREPARATION . ; , : : : ; . 104
ANTICIPATION . : : : : . TOS
INSTIGATION : : : : : 5 : » 109g
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
xi
MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG’S CHRISTMAS
DINNER.
THE INVITATION
MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG SET OFF TO THE SQUIRRELS’
A VERY SLOW PARTY
THE JOLLY MOLES
TAIL-PIECE
THE LITTLE JACKDAW.
THE OTHER CHAP
MISCHIEF .
““Hr’LL NEVER THINK OF LOOKING HERE FOR IT†.
A GOOD HIDING-PLACE
JACK’S BREAKFAST
JACK’S BATH. ; : : ; :
GOING UPSTAIRS TO DRY
JACK AND THE JUNGLE CAT
QUAINT PETS.
THE LUCID INTERVAL
AFTER THE THUNDERSTORM
PAGE
115
120
123
127
128
133
135
137
139
142
143
145
147
on
nN
i)
on
w
xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
“My TURN NOWâ€
FLOPSY
THE GAMECOCK AND THE TRAMP
MOLLY’S TUB
MOLLY AND HER MISTRESS
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
By an Lndia-rubber Man.
JUMBO AND I
“uGH ! HE WAS UGLY!â€
TWO AND TWO.
“TALLY HO! PIERROT!â€
“SCREAMING ‘MURDER!’â€
FIVE LITTLE PIXIES.
PIXIES AT PLAY
‘“ THEY FOUND A HOLE IN A MOSSY BANKâ€
‘OUT CAME A BEE WITH A PIN IN HER TAILâ€
‘AND RUBBED THEMSELVES HARD WHERE THE BEE-
STINGS BURNED â€
PAGE
9
157
158
159
160
169
173
175
181
185
IgI
192
193
194
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xili
PAGE
“AND TATTERED THEIR COBWEBS ALL TO BITS†. 195
‘THEN WITH A SCREAM DID THE PIXIE JUMP†» 196
‘““HE WISHED HE NEVER HAD BEEN BORN†. . 197
“ AND TURN TOPSY-TURVY A SLEEPING SNAIL†197, 198
“HURRAH FOR A SPREE!’ THE PIXIES CRIED†. 198
‘‘“Wr’LL MAKE THEM TAKE US OUT FOR A RIDE’â€. 199
“LIKE SHOOTING STARS THE MANNIKINS FELL†. 200
“ STOLE FIVE OF THE PINKY SPOTTED EGGS†. gee Ol
“FIVE LITTLE TOMBSTONES ALL IN A ROW†. . 202
THE MISCHIEVOUS FPUFFINS.
PUFFINS IN A ROW . ; : : : ; » 205
“NOBODY AT HOME! WELL Go IN!†: : . 206
“HOME, SWEET HOME!†. ; ; : ; . 207
“MURDER! WHAT'S THAT!†. : : : . 207
DEDICATION.
THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICAIED TO
“DASH,†THE DOG,
“PATRICK†AND “SANDIE,â€
THE KITTENS,
“FLOPSY,†“TOPSY,†“KIKITIKITAVI,†“ MOWGLI,â€
“ FROGGIE,â€
AND
ALL THE OTHERS OF THE FLUCTUATING FAMILY
OF
GUINEA-PIGS
(WHOSE NUMBERS ARE UNCERTAIN),
AND TO THE MEMORY OF
ALL JACKDAWS.
“DasH†is a Spaniel puppy with glossy coat as red as a Devon
cow, and long pendent ears crimpled in the latest fashion. He
has not yet grown up to the size of his paws, and so he stumbles
over them in going upstairs, and he tumbles over them in going
downstairs.
He eschews nothing in the way of food, but he chews everything,
from a water-colour cake to a collar. He galumphs about with
a wondering look in his brown eyes, for he cannot understand
why all the birds that fly overhead are not shot for him to carry
to his master.
“ Patrick†is a kitten with a coat as black and glossy as velvet,
and golden eyes. He is as lithe as Bagheera, the Black Panther,
with a profile like an Egyptian cat-god. But with all his beauty
he has no moral principles.
“ Sandie†is a bright tabby, a nervous little sprite, with a snub
nose and great honest eyes that fill up nearly all his face. He
is conscientious and grateful for notice, although he never seeks
it. He catches the mice, and Patrick steals them. When
Patrick finds Sandie in a comfortable place, he stands on him
and pretends to be very fond of him, and.so he squeezes him
out and takes the place himself.
As for the Guinea-pigs, they live in a stable. When they came
first, they were few in number, and their relationships “were
known to the children; but now the family tree is complicated.
“Flopsy†is Abyssinian, with long woolly locks, ‘ Topsy†is
smooth and piggy, and of the rest some are French and curly.
As for the Jackdaws, I can only say
“ De mortius nil nisi bonum,â€
which the boy (who learns Latin) translates,
‘“Of the dead there is nothing left but bones.â€
F.C. G,
PO eee el) OO Oe OD ae
A Tragedy in Bird Life.
CHAPTER:
HO killed Cock Robin ?â€
That was the question which
agitated all Featherland!
Ever since the unfortunate
victim of this dreadful crime
had been found in a dying
4 state, with his bright red vest
stained crimson by the life-blood flowing from
a wound where an arrow was deeply em-
bedded in his breast, nothing else had been
talked of. The rooks discussed it noisily
from morn to eve, and even in the night
they sometimes woke up and argued with
each other. The jays screamed and yelled
so excitedly over it that the owls complained
to the police that their rest was disturbed.
The starlings met every morning early and
whistled and chattered over every fresh rumour
connected with the tragedy.
3
4 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
The nightingales, who were musical, were
so much affected by the event that they sat
up all night in the moonlight singing mournful
and sentimental songs about ‘Love and
Death.†And the consequence was that they
caught bad colds, and by the end of June
they had lost their voices and could only croak.
The swifts and the swallows and the martins
darted about here, there, and everywhere,
picking up news. The warblers chatted about
the murder in the hedgerows and the woods,
and as for the members of the great finch
family, they went fairly mad. For suspicion
had fallen upon a certain Jack Sparrow, and
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†5
he had been arrested and charged with the
crime, and was now lying in prison awaiting
his trial. The sparrows generally were furious
that any one of their number should have
been suspected; they insisted that it was a
class persecution, because Cock Robin had
influential friends, whereas
Jack Sparrow was of humble
birth and had not the best
of reputations.
And desperate were the
wranglings and the scrim-
mages which went on every
day in Featherland when
parties happened to meet who
held different views as tO JOHN sparrow, THE
“Who killed Cock Robin.†rine
As the day fixed for the trial drew near
the excitement increased, and every item of
gossip which related in any way to the case was
eagerly seized upon and elaborated by those
who catered for the public—the journalists.
This much was known for certain: Lord Chief
Justice Owl would be the presiding judge; Sir
Honey Buzzard, Q.C., the Attorney-General,
would be the leading counsel for the prosecution,
6 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
and with him would be Mr. Goshawk, Q.C.,
the standing counsel for the Treasury.
For the defence, the only name which had
transpired was that of Sir Peregrine Falcon,
Q.C., but the prisoner’s case was in the hands
of Messrs. Kite and Co., the eminent criminal
lawyers, and there would be no lack of legal
assistance,
At last the day arrived for the commence-
ment of the trial, and all Featherland gave
itself up to the study of the historic drama
about to be played. Every approach to the
court was crowded to suffocation long before
the doors were opened. Once or twice some
mischievous little rascal of a tomtit would raise
a scream of “Cats!†and then a wild rush
of feet and feathers would ensue; but that
dangerous amusement was soon stopped when ~
a bullfinch policeman caught one of the little
scamps, and running him to the outskirts of
the crowd, hit him sharply in the small of his
back and sent him off screeching.
And when the doors were opened the crowd
found that the court was already quite full, for a
lot of privileged ones had obtained tickets from
an alderman, and had been admitted the night
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†7.
before. The crowd howled at these favoured
ones, but it was no use, so they relieved their
feelings by hooting and jeering Mr. Alderman
Puffin when he arrived in his carriage.
The wigged and gowned counsel made their
way through the press without much difficulty,
and no one interfered with them.
ARRIVAL OF THE JUDGE,
Then the Lord Chief Justice arrived, in a
neat carriage drawn by a white rabbit, and
driven by a jackdaw in dark livery. And the
old judge looked so benevolent and so harmless
as he blinked through his spectacles, that the
crowd cheered him.
Outside the court the crowd waited patiently
all day, eagerly questioning every policeman
8 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
and every messenger who showed himself.
And they even tried to waylay the little blue-
tits who had to take slips from the reporters
to the newspaper offices ; but when they found
that the slips were written in shorthand they
left the messengers alone, and they waited on
until the first editions of the evening papers
came out. The Evening Twitter was the first.
This paper had all through espoused the
Sparrow cause, and stood up stoutly for the
prisoner's innocence. And when, early in
the afternoon, a horde of young spadgers came
rushing frantically from the Zwetter office with
thick, damp folds of printed paper stowed
away over their shoulders and under their
wings, the crowd caught sight of the contents
bills, which the spadgers carried displayed from
their beaks, and in five minutes every paper
was bought up at double price. And no
wonder! for the bills ran thus in big lettering :-—
MURDER OF COCKY ROBIN.
TRIAL THIS DAY.
| DISGRACEFUL ATTEMPT TO PACK THE JURY.
STARTLING INCIDENT.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL OPENS THE CASE,
THE SCENE IN COURT.
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†9
Then another shouting, yelling mob of news-
paper urchins came rushing on with the first
edition of Zhe Leak, a paper devoted to the
interests of the upper classes, and which had,
ever since the murder, called on the Govern-
ment every day to discover the murderer and
bring him to justice.
And the contents bill of Zhe Beak ran
thus :—
THE MURDER OF MR. COCK ROBIN.
THE ACCUSED IN THE DOCK.
POWERFUL SPEECH BY THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL.
STARTLING EVIDENCE.
SENSATIONAL DISCLOSURES.
SCENES IN COURT.
THE TRIAL.
The curtain rose on the drama of this
memorable trial when, at ten o'clock precisely,
Lord Chief Justice Owl took his seat, after
gravely responding to the obeisance of the
court. The next moment all eyes were
directed to the dock as the prisoner was
brought in guarded by two stalwart bullfinch
10 “ WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
warders. He looked coolly round before
seating himself with an easy, almost defiant
air.
The jury list was then called over, and as
each one answered to his name and stepped
forward the prisoner Sparrow was evidently
keenly interested.
Although he had the right of challenging
any of the jurymen, he made no sign as, one
after the other, the fateful twelve were selected.
. Messrs. Jay, Jack Daw, Magpie, Starling,
Thrush, Blackbird, Cuckoo, Lark, Goldfinch,
Swallow, and Linnet passed into the box ; but
when the twelfth name was called, ‘‘ House
Martin!†the prisoner eagerly motioned to Mr.
Kite, his solicitor, and the next moment Sir
Peregrine Falcon was on his legs challenging
on Sparrow’s behalf.
“My lud,†he said, ‘‘Mr. House Martin
and the prisoner have been on unfriendly terms
for a considerable period in consequence of a
disputed title to certain property, and it would
be impossible to prevent the influence of
prejudice caused by such personal feeling.â€
The Attorney-General immediately sprang
up and informed the court that the dispute
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†11
about certain property referred to by his
learned friend was nothing more nor less than
the fact that the prisoner at one time took
forcible possession of a dwelling-house, the
property of Mr. Martin, and that a writ of
ejectment had to be obtained in order to evict
the intruder.
Sir Peregrine Falcon angrily protested
against this attempt to prejudice the character
of his client. Sir Honey Buzzard retorted,
and there was every prospect of a scene thus
early, when the Lord Chief Justice intervened
and checked the rising storm, suggesting that
it would be well in the interests of justice that
another juror should be substituted who had
no interest either for or against the prisoner.
Mr. Woodpecker was then called, and the
jury being complete, the twelve were solemnly
sworn in, and Mr. Jay was chosen as foreman.
Sir Honey Buzzard, as we know, was the
leading counsel for the prosecution, and with
him were Mr. Goshawk, Q.C., Mr. Kestrel,
and Mr. Shrike, whilst the prisoner was repre-
sented by Sir Peregrine Falcon, Q.C., Mr.
Merlin, Q.C., and Mr. Sparrow Hawk.
CHAPTER. 11
OT guilty,†pleaded the prisoner,
and then Sir Honey Buzzard
solemnly rose and, hitching his
gown on to his shoulders with
a characteristic movement, began
his opening address. With low,
impressive tones and dramatic
gestures he unfolded the gruesome details of
the crime which he said had ‘“ murderously
and foully cut short a life of bright promise
and deprived Featherland of one of her bright-
est ornaments.â€
The court was thrilled into horror-stricken
silence as the Attorney-General described the
finding of the victim’s body lying stretched on
the blood-stained grass, the bright eyes dimmed
with the glaze of approaching death, the dainty
legs drawn up in agony, and the scarlet vest
stained with the fast ebbing life-stream, with
12
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†13
the cruel murderer’s weapon still quivering in
the martyred breast. The shuddering audience
listened in silence—a silence only broken now
and then by the scratching of the judge’s quill
pen and the rustling of the counsel’s papers.
|
Mr Justice Owl 708
But as the Attorney-General proceeded the
strain became too great for some of the gentler
sex ; and one after another hysterical cries rang
through the Chamber of Justice, and five or
six females had to be carried out in fits.
The Lord Chief Justice was visibly annoyed
by these interruptions, and at last he could not
14 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
restrain his impatience, and he sternly re-
marked that if ‘‘ people had so little control
over their feelings as to make these unseemly,
although perhaps involuntary, demonstrations
he would have the court cleared.†This threat
had the desired effect, and the case proceeded.
“ Who killed Cock Robin?†declaimed Sir
Honey as he glared indignantly round the
CouMsER FOR YHE
Mrosecutian,
in a CT
=
court, and then, leaning forward, he looked at
the jury and, with extended forefinger, told
them that it was for them to say, when the
time came, whether or no the prisoner standing
in the dock, Sparrow, with his bow and arrow,
had killed Cock Robin. He would, he said,
produce evidence which would prove beyond
the shadow of a doubt that the wretched
prisoner was the murderer. That there was
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†15
a motive for the crime he would prove by the
evidence of a young widow lady, of whom the
prisoner was evidently violently enamoured,
and who, refusing his suit, had confided her
trusting heart and had promised her little hand
to the lover who now lay stark and dead in his
premature tomb. However painful it might
be for this unhappy and bereaved young
woman to give her evidence, she would not
shrink from her task, and she would be un-
deterred from this melancholy duty by any of
the foul machinations of enemies or by the
lying innuendoes of malicious tongues.
Here Sir Honey Buzzard turmed , partly
round and glared fiercely at Sir Peregrine and
the row of the prisoner's counsel. They,
however, took no notice of the shaft and smiled
sweetly in Mr. Attorney’s face, while their
leader calmly took a pinch of snuff. Then Sir
Honey Buzzard turned to the jury again, and,
lowering his voice to an impressive whisper,
said, ‘I shall put into the witness-box—and
you will be able to judge for yourselves as to
the witness's veracity—a priest who knelt by
the side of the dying victim, and who heard his
last words. These last words, gentlemen,
16 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
constitute an awful and, I venture to say,
an unanswerable indictment of the prisoner.â€
(Sensation.) ‘And, gentlemen, although no
eye saw the prisoner’s hand launch the fatal
arrow from the bow, yet I shall put before you
evidence that will leave no doubt on the minds
<
— SSS
RSs
SoS
S
=
eS
ws
Ss
SIR PEREGRINE FALCON, Q.C.
of any jury, more especially of such an excep-
tional jury as I see before me now, of John
Sparrow’s guilt.â€
The jurymen looked at each other approv-
ingly, and it was evident that an impression
had been made. Mr. Jay, the foreman, in
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†17
particular, appeared highly gratified, and his
topknot rose and swelled with pride.
After lunch, the Attorney-General resumed
his speech, and when the shades of evening fell
upon the court his flow of eloquence appeared
still undiminished, and the trial was adjourned
to the next day.
The Lvening Twitter came out with big
posters and headlines of phenomenal size :—
THIRD EDITION.
THE TRIAL.
THE PRISONER CALM AND CONFIDENT.
Tue ATTORNEY-GENERAL IS VENOMOUS BUT
WEAK.
THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION.
Poor JENNY WREN!
And later a Fifth Edition was heralded by
posters :—
“Tue ATTORNEY-GENERAL STILL MAUNDERING.â€
2
18 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
But the evening editions of Zhe Beak
announced its matter very differently :—
THE TRIAL.
JAcK SPARROW IN THE Dock.
IMPRESSIVE SPEECH BY THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL.
SENSATIONAL DISCLOSURES.
At ten o’clock punctually the next morning
the Lord Chief Justice resumed his seat, and
Sir Honey Buzzard rose to continue his speech.
In his peroration he made an earnest appeal in
a voice broken by emotion that the jury would
fearlessly do their duty, so that the sanctity
of life might be preserved inviolate in Feather-
land, and that justice might be enabled by
stern vindication to purge this horrible blood-
stain from the outraged soil on which Cock
Robin’s weltering corpse had been stretched by
the vile assassin’s hand.
As Sir Honey Buzzard spoke these con-
cluding words he faltered, and for a moment
almost broke down, whilst two large tears
slowly coursed down the slope of his aquiline
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†19
nose, and dropped over the point with a splash
on to his papers. Mr. Goshawk, Mr. Kestrel,
and Mr. Shrike covered their faces with their
robes and silently wept, and even the Lord
Chief Justice Owl was observed to blink, and
Mr..Jay, the foreman of the jury, sobbed un-
restrainedly. And a small butcher bird in the
gallery burst out crying, and was indignantly
S$ AEA ae }4
Whe Prisoner consults wi th
Ns Solicitor-
expelled by one of the officials. But the effect
of this painful scene was somewhat marred at
the critical moment by the fact that Sir
Peregrine Falcon, who had just before taken
an extra large pinch of snuff, flourished a big
bandana handkerchief and gave a tremendous
sneeze, and Mr. Sparrow Hawk, who had been
busy caricaturing Sir Honey on the back of his
brief, showed it to Mr. Merlin, who imme-
20 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
diately went into a fit of suppressed laughter.
And the Attorney-General sat down, glancing
a look of indignation at the learned counsel on
the other side.
Mr. Goshawk, Q.C., then rose, and, address-
ing his lordship, said that the first witness he
should call would be somewhat out of the order
of the evidence to be adduced, but it was
necessary to call that particular witness at
once, for reasons the justice of which, he felt
convinced, his ‘“ludship†would recognise.
Thomas Trout, whom he would now call, was
a waterman, who was on the fatal spot imme-
diately after the murder had been committed.
Unfortunately he suffered from extreme short-
ness of breath when he was removed for any
length of time from his natural element, and
therefore it was important that he should not
be kept waiting to give his evidence any longer
than was absolutely necessary. The prisoner's
counsel offering no objection to this course, the
usher called ‘‘ Thomas Trout.â€
A singular-looking figure responded to the
summons, and clambered with difficulty into
the witness-box. He was dressed in nautical
attire, and he stared round the court with eyes
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†21
that seemed to be almost starting from his head.
His breath was evidently painfully short, and
he absolutely gasped for breath as he answered
the opening questions put to him by Mr,
Goshawk.
CHAPTER III.
E spoke with an accent which
rendered him almost unin-
telligible, and the reporters
had the greatest difficulty in
following him, whilst the judge
remarked once or twice, with
evident irritation, that he could
not hear a single word. This was the
evidence-in-chief of Thomas Trout as nearly
as possible as he gave it :—
“My name is Thomas Trout. I am a
waterman, residing at Waterside. Ees, I
minds the day of the murder. I were in the
water as usual about dree o'clock, when I yurd
a kind o’ screechin’ and a hollerin’ ashore like,
and when I looks up the bank I sees there was
summat up. There was Cock Robin a lyin’ on
his back with the legs o’ mun a stickin’ up in
the air, and I seed a gurt beg dart like in his
22
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†23
stummick, and sez I to myself, ‘ Blest if it
b’aint a murder!’
‘Anybody near? LEes, surely, there was
Mr. Dragon Fly a kneelin’ down alongside and
a holdin’ up ’is ’ead. Whose ’ead? Why,
Why
WS Sh |,
& uy
MR. JAY, THE FOREMAN.
Cock Robin’s, 0’ coorse. Well, I slithered up
the bank, and Z
The Lord Chief Justice: ‘I couldn’t catch
that word, the witness said he ‘something’ up
the bank -
“ Slithered, yer Onour!†said the witness.
24 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
“What!†said the judge, holding his hand
up to his ear and leaning forward.
« Slithered, my lud! he says he slithered up
the bank.â€
“But what does he mean by ‘slithered’?â€
demanded the Lord Chief Justice somewhat
petulantly.
Mr. Woodpecker, one of the jury, timidly
remarked that it meant to scramble. Then the
witness proceeded, gasping painfully, for the
delay was visibly telling on his breath :—« I
slithered up the bank and got alongside the
corpse. He was moanin’ and groanin’ like,
and I got some water in a pannikin and guv
‘im, and then I caught the blood which was a
runnin’ down and dirtyin’ of the water. I
didn’t zee nobody ’cept Mr. Dragon Fly at
fust, and dree or vour minutes arterwards I zee
Vather Rook a rinnin’ up, and I gooed back to
the watter. I wos that short o’ breath.â€
The cross-examination was very short.
“You are sure you saw no one anywhere
about except Mr. Dragon Fly, and subse-
quently Father Rook?â€
“JT didn’t zee nobody but them two,†was
the answer,
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†25
“ Did you see the prisoner there?â€
“No, zur! I never zeed ’un at all.â€
‘One more question, Mr. Trout,†said Sir
Peregrine Falcon. ‘When you arrived on the
scene, was the arrow still sticking in the breast
of the deceased ?â€
‘‘He worn’t diseased, as I knows on,â€
MR. DRAGON FLY.
replied the witness, ‘“‘but the arrow was a
stickin’ in ’is stummick, as I said avore.â€
“Was the arrow removed whilst you were
there?†was the next question.
‘No, zur, it wor still a stickin’ up when I
gooed away back to the watter.â€
‘That will do,†said Sir Peregrine Falcon as
he sat down, and Thomas Trout waddled out
26 : “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
and hurried away, for his breath was nearly
exhausted by this time.
Dragon Fly was the next witness called, and
a slim, elegant figure, dressed in bright-
coloured clothes with alternate blue and yellow
stripes, stepped airily and jauntily forward.
The most striking feature about him was that
he had a pair of abnormally large eyes and
rather a fierce expression of countenance.
There was nothing in his evidence to throw
any light upon the authorship of the crime.
He stated that he suddenly came upon the
body of Cock Robin lying on the grass near
the waterside. An arrow was sticking in his
breast, and he was evidently dying. He (the
witness) shouted for help, and the last witness,
Mr. Trout, came up, but nothing could be
done. When Father Rook came on the scene,
he himself hurried away to inform the police
and to get medical assistance, if possible.
In his cross-examination he stated that he
did not attempt to remove the arrow, for he
feared it would only increase the bleeding.
Then Mr. Dragon Fly disappeared, and Father
Rook succeeded. He was a big, swarthy-
faced priest, dressed in clerical garb. He
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†27
claimed to be sworn upon a Darwin version of
the Testament, and some delay was caused by
a difficulty in obtaining one. When Sir Honey
Buzzard rose to examine, it was evident that
Father Rook was looked upon as an important
witness.
“Se did rot Secur ta meâ€
The reverend gentleman, who gave ‘“ The
Elms†as his address, stated in substance that,
hearing cries for assistance, he hurried towards
the scene of the murder, and found the two
former witnesses by the side of the deceased.
Thomas Trout, who complained cf his breath,
left immediately after he, Father Rook, arrived,
and he subsequently sent Mr. Dragon Fly
28 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
away to summon the police. The deceased
died a few minutes afterwards. He was sen-
sible to the last.
“Was he able to speak?†asked the
Attorney-General.
“He was just able to speak faintly,†replied
Father Rook.
“ Did you ask the deceased who had com-
mitted the outrage on him?â€
“T did,†answered the witness.
His reply produced a profound sensation in
court, and there was breathless silence as the
next question fell in measured tones from Sir
Honey Buzzard.
‘Tell the court, Father Rook, exactly what
was the question which you put to the deceased
and what his reply was.â€
“T said to the deceased, ‘Who has done
this?’ and he replied ‘ Sparrow !’â€
A thrill of sensation ran through the crowded
court. But, although this answer seemed to
the audience to seal the prisoner's doom, John
Sparrow sat perfectly unconcerned, and not a
muscle of his face moved,
CHAPTER ATV.
HEN Sir Peregrine Falcon rose
to cross-examine. He elicited
from the witness that the de-
ceased could only speak with
difficulty.
Q. “You have stated, Father
Rook, that the fatal arrow had
not been extracted from the wound ?â€
A. ‘Yes, that is so.â€
Q. “In your opinion, did the wound
interfere with the deceased’s power of
speech ?â€
A. “ Undoubtedly it did.â€
Q. “Did the deceased speak in a strong
voice, or weakly, as if the wound obstructed
the breathing ?â€
A. ‘He spoke very faintly and with
difficulty.â€
Q. ‘A fatal wound in the chest with the
29
30 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
arrow still embedded in the chest would
naturally impede clear utterance; was the
utterance of the deceased at all impeded?â€
A. “Certainly, the unfortunate gentleman
was gasping painfully for breath.â€
Sir Peregrine exchanged a triumphant glance
with Mr. Merlin.
Q. “Was Cock Robin gasping when he
replied to your question, Father Rook ?â€
ae ORE prousnt out the word ‘ paoâ€
with a gasp.’
Q. ‘‘He gasped when he uttered the word
‘Sparrow.’ Very well. Now, Father Rook,
what were the exact words of your question to
the deceased ?â€
A. “1 said, ‘Who has done this ?’â€
Q. “ Are you prepared to swear that you
used those exact words ?â€
A. “Certainly? To the best of my belief
those were the words I uttered.â€
Q. ‘You were naturally agitated at the dis-
tressing scene?â€
A. “1 was dreadfully distressed.â€
Q. “Did you make any written record of
those words ?â€
A. “No; but I remember them distinctly.â€
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†31
Q. ‘Now, Father Rook, you say that you
were in a state of great agitation ?â€
A. “J was.â€
Q. “ Of extreme agitation ?â€
ga Certainlya:
Q. ‘And although you were in this state of
extreme agitation, you are able to remember
precisely every single word of the question
which you asked the deceased ?â€
A. “1 remember distinctly that I asked the
deceased how his death was caused.â€
Q. “You asked him what was the cause of
his death?â€
eee Niece
Q. “ You swear to that?â€
A. “J do, undoubtedly.â€
Q. “ But you swore just now that you asked
the deceased ‘ Who has done this?’ now you
swear that your question was ‘ What was the
cause of his death ?’â€
A. ‘1 see no difference.â€
Q. “So that you are not prepared to swear
whether you asked the deceased ‘Who has
done this?’ or ‘What is the cause of this?’â€
_ A. “Iam under the impression that I asked
him, ‘ Who has done this ?’â€
32 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
Q. “ But you will not swear positively ?â€
A. “No, certainly. I see no importance in
the difference.â€
Q. “Very well. Now you say that when
the deceased spoke to you he was gasping for
breath ?â€
A. “Yes.
Q. ‘And you say that the arrow was stick-
ing in his breast ?â€
A. ‘It was.â€
Q. “In your opinion, did the unfortunate
gentleman suffer pain from the presence of
this arrow?â€
A. ‘He evidently suffered intense pain
from it.â€
Q. “ He only uttered one single word in
reply to your question?â€
A. “ Only one.â€
Q. “ And that was?â€
A. “ Sparrow.â€
Q. ‘* Now, Father Rook, attend to me—will
you swear that the word which the deceased
spoke was Sparrow and not Arrow ?â€
A, “It was Sparrow.â€
Q. “ There is a similarity of sound between
the two words?â€
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
2
i ae
A. “ Undoubtedly.â€
Q. “ He spoke faintly ?â€
hm ESS
Q. “ And with gasps ?â€
Ae EG.
Q. “ Now, sir, suppose that instead of
asking ‘Who has done this?’ you had asked,
‘What is the cause of this?’ would you
have been surprised if the answer had been
‘Arrow’ ?â€
A. “No, I suppose not. I dare say it
would have been a natural answer.â€
Q. “ Suppose, again, that the deceased had
desired to utter the word ‘ Arrow,’ would it
not have been natural in his then state,
speaking faintly and with gasps, that you
might have mistaken the word ‘ Arrow’ for
‘Sparrow’ ?â€
vol did notoccur tome.
Q. “You knew that there had been ill-feeling
between the deceased and the prisoner ?â€
A. “Yes, I knew that there had been some
quarrel.â€
Q. “You were not surprised, then, to hear
the word ‘ Sparrow’ ?â€
A. ‘No, I was not.â€
34 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
Q. “Your knowledge of this quarrel rendered
the supposed statement of the deceased more
probable?â€
A. “Certainly.â€
Q. “ But if you put the question which |
have suggested, what was the cause? ‘ Arrow’
would not have seemed to you unnatural,
seeing that the cause of death was an
arrow ?â€
A. “ No, perhaps not unnatural.â€
Q. ‘Then, Father Rook, are you, in the
presence of this natural suggestion, still pre-
pared to swear solemnly that the deceased
Cock Robin used the word ‘ Sparrow,’ and not
‘Arrow’? Remember, sir, that the life of
a fellow-creature may depend upon your
answer.â€
A. “1 would not swear positively,â€
Q. “Then you will not swear that the
deceased said ‘ Sparrow’ ?â€
A. “1 would rather not swear positively.â€
Q. “He may have said ‘arrow’ ?â€
A. ‘“ He may possibly have.â€
Q. “ You will not swear that he did not?â€
A. ‘No, I will not swear that he did
(eke aay
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†35
Sir Peregrine Falcon promptly sat down,
with a significant glance at the jury.
Sir Honey Buzzard rose to re-examine, but
the witness had evidently been startled by the
possible new light thrown on his evidence, and
P.C. BULLFINCH.
he refused to commit himself further to any
decided opinion.
The next witness was William Bullfinch,
a sturdy, stolid-looking~ police-officer, whose
number was B.24. He gave his evidence in
the concise, official manner peculiar to the
members of the force. He deposed, in answer
36 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
to questions, that from information received
he went to the prisoner’s residence and arrested
him for the murder of the deceased. He made
no resistance. He told the prisoner it was
no use denying the charge. He said to the
prisoner, ‘“‘ You had better come along quietly,
for you know you did it.†Prisoner replied,
“J, with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock
Robin.†Prisoner showed no signs of remorse.
Sir Honey. Buzzard sat down with a com-
placent smile, and Sir Peregrine Falcon at once
rose to cross-examine. He elicited from the
witness that he had himself referred to the
bow and arrow as the weapons by which the
deceased had met his death. And further,
that although the prisoner had certainly used
the words deposed to—namely, “I, with my
bow and arrow, | killed Cock Robin,†he did
not take any notice of any particular tone in
which he spoke. He understood it to be a
confession, but the remark might have been
made in indignation or in surprise.
“Did the prisoner,’ asked Sir Peregrine
Falcon, ‘‘raise his voice at the end of the
sentence as ifin surprise at the nature of the
charge ?â€
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†37
The police constable replied stolidly that
under the code of police regulations it was no
part of his duty to note any details of that
sort.
‘‘Didithe prisoner,†persisted Sir Peregrine,
‘speak that sentence as if there were a full
stop at the end, or a note of interrogation ?â€
The witness looked bewildered, and doggedly
answered that it was not his duty to know any-
thing about full stops or notes of interrogation,
all he had to do was to arrest the prisoner ;
and he did it.
“Now, sir, said Sir Peregrine Falcon,
sternly, “answer me this question. Did you,
when you arrested the prisoner, and previously
to this remark which you say the prisoner
made, caution him that anything which he
might say would be used in evidence against
him ?â€
P.C. Bullfinch fidgeted uncomfortably and
grew very red in the face.
The relentless counsel stood with his eyes
firmly fixed on the witness's face.
At last the answer came reluctantly, “ No,
sir, I did not.â€
Then said Sir Peregrine, addressing the
38 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
judge, “I shall submit, my lord, at the proper
time that under the circumstance of that
omission, the evidence of the witness shall not
be received as implicating the prisoner.â€
CHAPTER V.
T certainly,†said the Lord Chief
Justice, ‘was an omission of a
remarkable character, and I shall
instruct the jury on the point
when I sum up the case.â€
Sir Peregrine Falcon bowed, and
the prosecuting counsel looked blankly at each
other, and pretended to be very busy with their
briefs. “ Jenny Wren!†the Usher then called,
and there was a great sensation in the court
when a small trembling widow crept timidly
into the witness-box. She was dressed in deep
mourning, and the tiny little hand which held
a delicate white lace handkerchief shook with
agitation as she repeatedly wiped away the tears
which trickled down her face.
Sir Honey Buzzard was very gentle as he
drew the evidence from the interesting witness,
39
4o “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
and she replied in a thin, almost inaudible
voice, broken every now and then by sobs.
“Yes, she was a widow; her late husband’s
name was Jimpo Wren. He was killed in
Ireland last St. Stephen’s day by the Wren boys,
who murdered him with sticks and stones.â€
“Yes, she was engaged to be married next
spring to the deceased Cock Robin.†Here
the poor little widow broke down entirely for
a few minutes, but she was restored by a burnt
feather which the kind-hearted Usher applied
to her nose.
“Yes,†she said, when the examination
was resumed, “she was acquainted with the
prisoner. He had pursued her with his atten-
tions for some time, and had tried to induce
her to break off her engagement to Cock
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†41
Robin and marry him, Jack Sparrow. When
she refused him definitely Mr. Sparrow flew
into a great rage. Yes, he spoke very bitterly
about his rival and threatened him. When
he went away he said that ‘he would get a new
string to his bow.’ She did not understand
at the time what he meant, but when Cock
Robin was found to have been killed by a bow
and arrow she understood the meaning of the
threat only too well.â€
This evidence naturally created a great sensa-
tion, and all ears were eagerly strained when
Sir Peregrine Falcon began his cross-examina-
tion. He treated the witness with great con-
sideration, but he ‘was evidently impressed
with the necessity to weaken or counteract,
if possible, the damaging testimony which she
had given.
“TI have no desire,†Sir Peregrine said gently,
“to harrow your feelings unnecessarily, but my
duty to my client compels me to ask you one
or two questions. Was the prisoner, in your
opinion, in paying his attentions to you, actuated
by a sincere affection for you ?â€
“Yes,†replied the witness, “he was evi-
dently deeply in love.â€
42 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
“Very naturally so,†said the counsel.
“Very well! Now, did he show any resent-
ment towards you as well as.towards his more
fortunate rival ?â€
“Yes,†said Mrs. Wren, ‘‘ he was very angry
yyâ€
and said some very rude things to me
“ Exactly so!†Sir Peregrine broke in, inter-
rupting an apparent inclination on the part
of the witness to expand her reply.
“Exactly so! Now you have told us that
the prisoner, when he left you in anger, made
use of the remark that he would get a new
string to his bow.â€
“He did,†replied the witness.
Sir Peregrine paused, took a pinch of snuff,
and then quietly, in a conversational tone of
voice, asked Mrs. Wren whether she had ever
heard of a well-known expression of a lady
having two strings to her bow ?â€
“Ves, certainly ; the witness had often heard
the expression used.â€
In reply to further questions, she said that
she understood the meaning of the saying
to be, “A lady having two admirers at the
same time.â€
“Very well,†said Sir Peregrine. ‘ Now,
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†43
did the prisoner, during that interview, accuse
you of having encouraged his suit, whilst you
were engaged to another ?â€
“He did,†answered the witness indignantly,
“but it was utterly untrue. I never did such
a thing.â€
“Tt was extremely wrong of him, no doubt,â€
said Sir Peregrine, ‘‘ but he gave you to under-
stand that he was under that ungenerous
impression.â€
‘Yes, he certainly did,†replied the witness ;
“and I can’t understand what could have made
him think so.â€
“But he did think so,†persisted the
counsel.
“Yes, he did,†was the reply, ‘‘and he
ought to have been ashamed of himself for it,â€
replied the widow, casting a scornful glance
at the impassive face of the prisoner in the
dock.
“That being the case,†Sir Peregrine Falcon
quietly remarked, looking fixedly at the wit-
ness, ‘‘ you would not have been surprised if
the prisoner had said to you in his anger, ‘ You
have ¢wo strings to your bow!’â€
“T should not have been in the least sur-
44 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
prised ; it is just what I should have expected
from him,†replied Mrs. Wren, with an indig-
nant toss of her little head.
“You were naturally angry and agitated at
this ungenerous treatment of you by the
prisoner, Mrs. Wren?â€
“I was, and any lady would have been upset
if she had been in my place!â€
‘“ Now, Mrs. Wren, does it not strike you
that there is great similarity of sound between
the words ‘a new string to my bow,’ and ‘ ¢wo
strings to your bow ?’â€
‘Yes, there is a certain sort of similarity,
but s
Sir Peregrine Falcon: ‘Very well! now,
Mrs. Wren, I must ask you to remember that
the life of a fellow-creature may depend upon
your answer, and a fellow-creature whose only
fault towards yourself has been that he loved
you ‘not wisely but too well.’ Will you swear
that the prisoner did not in his ungenerous
anger say to you, ‘You have ¢wo strings to
your bow’ ?â€
The witness evidently was impressed with
the possibility of the alternative presented to
her, and hesitatingly she faltered out :
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†45
‘No, I would rather not swear.â€
“Then,†said Sir Peregrine, raising his voice
and looking sternly for the first time at the
trembling little widow, “you will not swear
whether the prisoner said, ‘I will get a new
string to my bow,’ or whether he said, ‘ You’ve
got two strings to your bow ?’â€
The witness flushed, and looked timidly
round as if to seek escape from the question,
but Sir Peregrine Falcon’s blazing eyes were
fixed upon her, and at last the significant reply
fell from her lips, ‘‘ No, I can’t swear.â€
“Very well!†was the satisfied comment of
the great advocate as he sat down, and then the
court adjourned.
The several editions of the Avenzng Twitter
advertised in huge type—
THE GREAT TRIAL.
POLICE EVIDENCE.
46 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
A REVELATION.
THE WIDOW HAS TWO STRINGS TO HER BOw.
STARTLING ADMISSIONS,
BRILLIANT CROSS-EXAMINATION BY SIR PEREGRINE
FALCON.
THE END NEAR.
But The Leak still stuck to its colours, and
its contents bill gave the following headings :—
THE MURDER TRIAL.
SENSATIONAL DISCLOSURES.
PAINFUL SCENE IN CouRT.
THE Morive ror THE’ MURDER.
The next morning the court was more
crowded than ever, for there was a general
impression abroad that the case for the prosecu-
tion was drawing to a close.
The first witness called was ‘* Brown Owl,†a
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†47
russet-faced old creature, who described himself
as a grave-digger. He deposed that whilst he
was digging a grave for the corpse of the de-
ceased he overheard a conversation between two
of the Sparrow family, relatives of the prisoner.
But at this point Sir Peregrine Falcon in-
BROWN OWL, THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
tervened, and energetically objected to the
reception of this evidence, which could not, he
said, be admitted against the prisoner.
The Lord Chief Justice decided at once that
such hearsay evidence could not be received.
There was a hurried consultation between
the counsel for the prosecution, and then Sir
48 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
Honey Buzzard rose with a somewhat dejected
air and asked for a short adjournment, in order
that he might consult with his colleagues as to
the course they should pursue.
The Lord Chief Justice assenting, the court
adjourned for half an hour.
CHAPTER avin
O one but the judge and the
counsel engaged in the case left
the court, but the moment the
Lord Chief Justice had disap-
peared behind the curtains of his
retiring-room a very Babel of voices
arose, chatterings and twitterings,
as the interested audience eagerly discussed the
position of affairs.
‘« Silence !â€â€ shouted the usher, at the expira-
tion of the half-hour, and again the stately
figure and thoughtful face of the Lord Chief
Justice appeared, and an instantaneous silence
~ succeeded to the confusion of tongues.
Sir Honey Buzzard rose and announced with
a feeble attempt at nonchalance, ‘“‘ That is the
case for the prosecution, my lud.â€
A thrill of surprise ran through the court,
and even the stolid prisoner was observed to
49 4
50 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
smile. The little tomtit messengers were
instantly flitting out of court with hurriedly
scribbled flimsies, and in a quarter of an hour
the Evening Twitter was being shouted out
in every street—
THE GREAT TRIAL.
COLLAPSE OF THE PROSECUTION.
Str Honey Buzzarp THRows UP THE SPONGE.
There was a momentary pause in court, and
then amid a breathless silence Sir Peregrine
Falcon rose and applied to the Lord Chief
Justice for an adjournment until the next morn-
ing, in order to arrange his defence, in con-
sequence of the unexpected close of the case
for the other side.
There was no objection raised to this course,
and the sitting was immediately adjourned.
In the evening edition of 7he Leak the only
allusion to the great case was in small type :—
THE Cock RoBIN MURDER.
CLOSE OF THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION,
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†51
and then in large type—
ANOTHER OUTRAGE BY A SPARROW.
A Martin’s House SEIZED AND WRECKED.
The next morning, at ten o'clock, the second
act of the great drama opened with the rising
of Sir Peregrine Falcon to address the jury for
the defence.
It was an address which, from beginning to
end, fully sustained the brilliant reputation of
the great advocate, the greatest, perhaps, of
modern times. Step by step he followed the
evidence put forward by the prosecution, and
piece by piece he tore that evidence into shreds
and tatters, and flung the fragments aside in
a burning torrent of indignant eloquence. He
analysed one by one the different witnesses
who had appeared in the witness-box, and
his peroration held his audience in breathless
suspense until the very last word had been
uttered, and then the pent-up feelings of the
court burst forth into a volume of cheers, which
even the stern officialism of the sacred precincts
failed to check,
52 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
In- indignant tones he denounced the
monstrous conspiracy which lurked under the
cloak of this State prosecution, a conspiracy of
the classes against the masses, of a flaunting
aristocracy against a humble and _ plebeian
democracy, of the scarlet-vested Robin against
the fustian-garbed Sparrow. Had it been a
common brown spadger who had been found
dead, and had suspicion fallen upon a dainty
Robin, would there have been this great out-
burst of moral indignation? No! the body
would have been quietly consigned to the
obscurity of a casual grave, and Robin would
still have flaunted his sleek respectability in the
gilded halls of the upper ten of Birdland.
Jack Sparrow was a common fellow! ergo—
hang him! Cock Robin was a gentleman—
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†53
ergo, canonize him! But he, Sir Peregrine
Falcon, felt confident that the law—which
recognised no distinctions of caste, no difference
between rich and poor—the law was safe in
the hands of such an intelligent jury as that to
which the interests of justice in this important
case had been confided.
SIR PEREGRINE ADDRESSING THE JURY.
2
“Gentlemen of the jury,†cried the great
advocate in conclusion, ‘‘ the scales of justice
are in your hands; let no prejudice blind your
moral vision; let no passion bias your judg-
ment. If the humble prisoner at the bar did,
in your opinion, commit this dreadful crime,
your duty is clear; but if, after carefully
54 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
weighing the evidence, every link of which I
have shown you conclusively is rotten to the
core, you come to the conclusion—and I
respectfully submit that you can come to no
other conclusion—that the prisoner is innocent,
then you will fearlessly pronounce him ‘ Not
guilty, and you will have the proud satis-
faction of knowing that you have rescued from
the web of a tangled conspiracy a victim whose
only crime is that he is humble and poor, that
he is a Sparrow, and not a Robin.â€
When the ushers at last succeeded in reducing
the excited occupants of the court to silence,
Sir Honey Buzzard rose to reply for the
prosecution.
But he spoke hesitatingly and without
confidence. He referred deferentially and with
overstrained humility to the brilliant speech of
his learned brother Sir Peregrine Falcon, and
expressed his sense of his own inferiority. He
drew out the dry bones of his case, dusted
them over, and tried to rearrange them, but the
skeleton had been so ruthlessly dislocated by
the breakdown of the evidence and by the
oratory of the great counsel for the defence
that his task was a hopeless one, and when he
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†55
sat down every one felt that the conclusion was
a foregone one. But Mr. Justice Owl, to the
surprise of every one, gravely announced that
he should adjourn the court for a week, to
enable him to arrange his voluminous notes
before he commenced his summing-up. In the
evening paper the 7Zzz¢fer announced in
glowing phrases and double-leaded headings
that—
IT WAS OVER EXCEPT THE SHOUTING.
UTTER COLLAPSE OF THE CONSPIRACY.
WHO ARE THE RZAL CRIMINALS?
and The Beak put it—
BRILLIANT SPEECH OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL.
ADJOURNMENT OF THE Court.
During the week which ensued the partisans
of both sides were busy. The Robin party
went to and fro declaring that there could be
56 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
no doubt of Sparrow’s guilt. Everything, they
said, had been proved up to the hilt, and
they darkly hinted that the prosecution, had it
chosen, could have proved many other crimes,
even blacker still, against the prisoner.
The Sparrow party, on the other hand,
boldly denounced the prosecution, and argued
that if things were as they ought to be Sir
Honey Buzzard himself should be in the dock.
Mr. Justice Owl retired with his twenty
volumes of notes to his country seat, Oak
Hall, and every now and then a rumour came
to the outer world that the old judge had been
seen in the dead of night writing busily. A
nightjar declared that he had seen him walking
to and fro in his room learning his speech
by heart, and a society journal—7he Flea—
published an article, ‘Mr. Justice Owl at
Home,†in which it was stated that so con-
scientious and painstaking was the judge that
since the commencement of the Robin murder
case he had been seen by moonlight practising
archery. The week passed away, and again
the court assembled. Mr. Justice Owl com-
menced his summing up at once, and in a
speech which lasted from ten o’clock until four
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†57
reviewed the whole case. There was nothing
remarkable in the matter of the address. He
told the jury that it was for them to weigh
the value of the evidence adduced by the
prosecution. If they believed it, they would
undoubtedly be obliged, however reluctantly,
to return a verdict in accordance with their
SIR HONEY BUZZARD IS NOT PLEASED.
finding ; but if they considered the evidence
inconclusive or untrustworthy, then they were
bound to give the prisoner the benefit of the
doubt. This was the substance of the summing
up, although it took a long time to express
it. And, indeed, there were some carping
critics in Featherland who said that the learned
judge need not have consumed a whole week
in preparing so little.
55 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
There was a murmur of excitement in the
court as the jury retired to consider their
verdict. Mr. Justice Owl disappeared into
his private room to dine, and presently a
pungent odour of roast mice pervaded the
court.
Would the jury agree? Would they find
a verdict quickly, or would they have to be
locked up all night without food and water?
Every now and then from the jurymen’s
retiring-room came a clatter and a jabber of
tongues. The strident voice of Mr. Jay could
be clearly distinguished, and the rapid chatter-
ing of Mr. Starling.
Half an hour only had passed when there
was a sudden hush, and it was whispered that
the jury were coming back. Mr. Justice Owl
resumed his seat, and every eye was fixed
on the jury box asone by one the twelve
jurymen filed in and took their places. The
usual formalities were quickly gone through,
and then every ear was strained to hear the
fateful words as Mr. Jay pronounced the
verdict—NOT GUILTY!
A wild scene of excitement ensued, which
the ushers strove in vain to control. The
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†59
Sparrows were frantic in their expressions of
delight at the result. They screamed and
yelled and chattered, while the Warblers
slipped quietly out with angry scowls. The
court dissolved away, and the great trial was
AY:
'
ACQUIT Fel!
over. ‘A large crowd waited outside for the
appearance of the ex-prisoner, and when he
came out he was seized upon and carried off
shoulder high by an enthusiastic crowd. The
Leak announced the result that evening in
very small type :—
THE Ropin MurDER.
VERDICT.
60 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?’
But the LAvening Twitter came out with
gigantic lettering :—
THE CONSPIRACY SMASHED!
BRAVO, JURYMEN !
JACK SPARROW ACQUITTED.
TRIUMPHANT VINDICATION.
SIR HONEY BUZZARD BAFFLED!
So ended the great trial; but even to-day the
Warblers and all the Robin party darkly hint
that they could have brought more evidence
had they thought it necessary, and they
express their conviction that even if Jack
Sparrow did not actually murder Cock Robin
yet he was quite capable of committing that
or some other crime, and, in fact, that he ought
to have done it in order to sustain his evil
reputation.
But the Sparrow party hold stoutly by the
verdict, and if any foolish Warbler should
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†61
chance to refer to the old tradition that John
Sparrow with his bow and arrow feloniously
slew Cock Robin he will be hunted and jeered
at throughout Featherland, and he will be
lucky if he escape with undamaged plumage.
THEVGREAT BELTLE WAT
63
ASSASSINATION.
Little Longicorn is murdered by a Calasoma (sycophanta).
CHAP TE Rei:
MURDER.
HERE was great excitement
in Beetleland. A most foul
murder had been done. A little
Longicorn, as harmless as any of
his diminutive tribe, had been
brutally beaten to death by a
truculent chief of the Calasome beetles, and
his body dragged away. But for an accident
the murderer would, perhaps, never have been
known, and the crime would have been only
one more case of mysterious disappearance.
It chanced, however, that another of the
Longicorn tribe was an eye-witness of the cruel
deed; he came upon the scene just as the
Calasoma had beaten the life out of his victim
and was dragging the corpse away by the hind
legs into the tangled recesses of the forest.
67
68 THE GREAT BEETLE WAR.
It was too late for help, so the little Longi-
corn prudently hid himself amidst the wood
sorrel, and when the murderer had disappeared
he hurried away with breathless haste to bear
the tidings of the brutal deed to the Longicorn
village. Trembling with fear lest he might
cross the path of any of the bloodthirsty tribe,
he threaded his way through the thick under-
growth until he came to the place where his
tribesmen had: their camp.
They had captured a fine, fat caterpillar that
morning, and were dragging it with united
effort to their larder in the root of a rotten tree,
when the messenger rushed out of the wood
and told them the dismal tidings.
In an instant the Longicorn camp was in a
state of wild and angry excitement. The deed
must be avenged, but how? It was useless for
such little beetles as they were to attack so
ferocious a tribe as the Calasome, every one
of whom was a giant by comparison with their
little selves.
Some one suggested that the Bombardier
beetles, the hereditary enemies of the
Calasomz, would help them; but, alas! the
Bombardiers were far away on a raiding ex-
CONSTERNATION,
a\n eye-witness brings the news to the Longicorn Village.
CONSULTATION.
The Longicorns meet in Council and resolve to solicit aid from the Stag Beetles.
War Dance of the Ambassadors,
MURDER. 73
pedition, and they had taken all their artillery
with them.
There was only one hope possible, and that
was that the Stag beetles, who had befriended
them more than once, would once more help
and enable them to avenge the murder.
CHAP LE REID
THE ADVENTURES OF THE AMBASSADORS.
O they resolved to send ambas-
sadors to Coleopteron, the King
of the Stag beetles, to beg for
his aid, and, for this purpose,
they selected six of their
strongest and best warriors for
the perilous duty—for perilous
it was likely to be.
The palace of King Coleopteron was at least
two long days’ journey distant, and the way
was through the tangled forest, where lurked
many deadly foes, and across wide and danger-
ous rivers, too deep to wade and full of fearsome
water-beasts. ;
But the ambassadors were armed with spears
and shields, and before they departed they
performed a vigorous war dance, in which
they went through a pantomimic slaying of
74
PROGRESSION,
‘The Ambassadors on the March crossing Hemlock Bridge,
THE ADVENTURES OF THE AMBASSADORS. 77
all possible enemies, whether of air, earth, or
water.
And then, full of enthusiasm and courage,
they started on their adventurous march.
Cautiously they threaded their way through
the intricate mazes of the vegetation, ever on
the look-out for the enemy; they hurried
through the aisles of the tall fern forests,
shadowed by the gigantic fronds which waved
overhead far up the towering stems.
Once they heard a great rustling among the
dead leaves, and they had only just time enough
to conceal themselves, when a great mottled
snake glided swiftly across their path. Another
time they heard a scrunching noise as if some
great wild beast were devouring his prey, and
peering through between the openings in the
tall grass they caught a glimpse of a huge grey-
brown bristly monster, and seeing it to be
Hedgehog, the great beetle-killer, they fled
for their lives.
At last they came to a ravine at the bottom
of which flowed a river, and they were at their
wits’ end to know how to cross it. In vain
they ‘explored the banks to right and left to
find some crossing-place. They would have
78 THE GREAT BEETLE WAR.
made a raft and floated across, but a great
water-newt was watching them with hungry
eyes, and, like a great slimy alligator, he kept
abreast of them as they moved up and down
the side of the river, every now and then
raising his flat, ugly head above the surface
of the stream, and following them with his
cold, cruel-looking eyes.
And they could see, too, every now and
then, Dyticus, the great blood-thirsty water-
beetle. He would come to the surface, pro-
trude his shiny back, and then dive again, and
they knew what their fate would be if he should
rise under their raft and upset it.
But, at last, to their great joy, they came
to where a broken branch of a hemlock-tree
lay across the river from bank to bank, and
they clambered across carefully. And Triton,
the great water-newt, raised himself head and
shoulders on to a rock in the middle of the
stream down below, and he opened his mouth
and angrily lashed his tail in his disappointment.
But the perils had only begun, for as they
passed through a dense jungle in the Ant
Country a crowd of those fierce, venomous
little warriors suddenly rushed out from one
INTERRUPTION,
The party is suddenly attacked by Ants, and one of the Longicorns is wounded.
THE ADVENTURES OF THE AMBASSADORS. 81
of their subterranean strongholds and fero-
ciously attacked the Longicorn ambassadors.
They hurled myriads of little, keen-pointed
spears, they clung to the legs of the beetles,
and bit them savagely, trying to bear them to
the ground. The Longicorns fought valiantly,
but no matter how many of the fierce little
creatures they killed, fresh hordes always took
their places and renewed the attacks. So they
fled, fighting as they went. All the six Longi-
corns were wounded, and one so seriously that
his companions had to carry him.
At last they managed to outstrip their pur-
suers, and as evening was coming on they
came to the banks of a wide, swift stream,
and they resolved to dare the perils of the
water rather than spend the night on land, for
they knew that there were shrew mice about—
those noisome, long-snouted beetle-slayers,
who would show them no mercy if they should
fall into their clutches.
And just as they had completed their raft,
on which they laid their wounded companion,
and had raised a feather sail to waft them
across the water, one of these great beasts
came out of the wood towards them, with his
6
82 THE GREAT BEETLE WAR.
nose twitching, and they hastily pushed away
from shore, and launched out on the bosom of
the swiftly-running river.
But they were out of the frying-pan only to
fall into the fire.
NAVIGATION.
Dreading the perils of the shore, they make a raft and take to the water just in time
to escape from a Shrew.
|
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The Baldwin Library
University
of
Florida
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"COCK 7OB1N,
AND OTHER STORIES.
“WHO KILLED
Cock ROBIN?â€
AND OTHER STORIES
LOR CHILDREN YOUNG AND OLD
TOLD IN PEN AND PENCIL
BY
F. CARRUTHERS GOULD
LONDON
“WESTMINSTER GAZETTE’
1896
Printed by Hazell, Watson, & Viney, Ld., London and Aylesbury.
HIE. stories tn this little book are collected
Jrom the pages of the Patu Mati Bupcet
and the WESTMINSTER BupcEt. For permts-
ston to reprint those whith appeared in the
former journal [ am indebted to the kind
courtesy of the proprietors of the Paty MALL
GAZETTE.
F.C. G.
CHRISTMAS, 1895.
COWEN is
DEDICATION
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
THE GREAT BEETLE WAR
MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG’S CHRISTMAS DINNER
THE LITTLE JACKDAW
QUAINT PETS
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY (BY AN INDIA-
RUBBER MAN)
FIVE LITTLE PIXIES .
THE MISCHIEVOUS PUFFINS
Se Ob eee ae
“WHO KILLED COCK. ROBIN?â€
PAGE
THE VICTIM. . : : . : : : 4
JOHN SPARROW, THE ACCUSED . ; : : : 5
ARRIVAL OF THE JUDGE . : : : : ; 7
MR. JUSTICE OWL. : ; : ; . caer 3
COUNSEL FOR THE PROSECUTION. : . . 4
SIR PEREGRINE FALCON, QC. . 7°. . : ; 16
THE PRISONER CONSULTS WITH HIS SOLICITOR . » 19
MR. JAY, THE FOREMAN . : ; : : aes
MR DRAGON FLY ; : : : : ions
FATHER ROOK . : . : : : . eos]
POLICE CONSTABLE BULLFINCH . ' : : ees
JENNY WREN . . . . . : : ata
“EXTRY SPESHULS†. : : d ; : » 45
BROWN OWL, THE GRAVE DIGGER 7 . . . 47
x LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
PAGE
THE JURY. : : : . : : : . 52
SIR PEREGRINE ADDRESSING THE JURY . ; Pen 3
SIR HONEY BUZZARD IS NOT PLEASED : : ree S|
ACQUITTED! : ; : : : . - 59
THE GREAT BEETLE WAR.
ASSASSINATION . : : : : : . eT OG)
CONSTERNATION ; : . : : : . 70
CONSULTATION . : ; : ; : . ei 71
PROGRESSION . : , . : : ; ue] 5
INTERRUPTION . ; 79
NAVIGATION. ; : ; : : : . 83
IMMERSION : : ; ; : ; : . 88
INFORMATION . : . . . : . . 89
PROTECTION. . : : : : ° . 89
LOCOMOTION. : : : : : : 93
APPLICATION. : : . : : : = O7
INTERCESSION . ; : . : : . . I00
SUPPLICATION . : : : . . . EOL
PREPARATION . ; , : : : ; . 104
ANTICIPATION . : : : : . TOS
INSTIGATION : : : : : 5 : » 109g
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
xi
MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG’S CHRISTMAS
DINNER.
THE INVITATION
MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG SET OFF TO THE SQUIRRELS’
A VERY SLOW PARTY
THE JOLLY MOLES
TAIL-PIECE
THE LITTLE JACKDAW.
THE OTHER CHAP
MISCHIEF .
““Hr’LL NEVER THINK OF LOOKING HERE FOR IT†.
A GOOD HIDING-PLACE
JACK’S BREAKFAST
JACK’S BATH. ; : : ; :
GOING UPSTAIRS TO DRY
JACK AND THE JUNGLE CAT
QUAINT PETS.
THE LUCID INTERVAL
AFTER THE THUNDERSTORM
PAGE
115
120
123
127
128
133
135
137
139
142
143
145
147
on
nN
i)
on
w
xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
“My TURN NOWâ€
FLOPSY
THE GAMECOCK AND THE TRAMP
MOLLY’S TUB
MOLLY AND HER MISTRESS
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
By an Lndia-rubber Man.
JUMBO AND I
“uGH ! HE WAS UGLY!â€
TWO AND TWO.
“TALLY HO! PIERROT!â€
“SCREAMING ‘MURDER!’â€
FIVE LITTLE PIXIES.
PIXIES AT PLAY
‘“ THEY FOUND A HOLE IN A MOSSY BANKâ€
‘OUT CAME A BEE WITH A PIN IN HER TAILâ€
‘AND RUBBED THEMSELVES HARD WHERE THE BEE-
STINGS BURNED â€
PAGE
9
157
158
159
160
169
173
175
181
185
IgI
192
193
194
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. xili
PAGE
“AND TATTERED THEIR COBWEBS ALL TO BITS†. 195
‘THEN WITH A SCREAM DID THE PIXIE JUMP†» 196
‘““HE WISHED HE NEVER HAD BEEN BORN†. . 197
“ AND TURN TOPSY-TURVY A SLEEPING SNAIL†197, 198
“HURRAH FOR A SPREE!’ THE PIXIES CRIED†. 198
‘‘“Wr’LL MAKE THEM TAKE US OUT FOR A RIDE’â€. 199
“LIKE SHOOTING STARS THE MANNIKINS FELL†. 200
“ STOLE FIVE OF THE PINKY SPOTTED EGGS†. gee Ol
“FIVE LITTLE TOMBSTONES ALL IN A ROW†. . 202
THE MISCHIEVOUS FPUFFINS.
PUFFINS IN A ROW . ; : : : ; » 205
“NOBODY AT HOME! WELL Go IN!†: : . 206
“HOME, SWEET HOME!†. ; ; : ; . 207
“MURDER! WHAT'S THAT!†. : : : . 207
DEDICATION.
THIS LITTLE BOOK IS DEDICAIED TO
“DASH,†THE DOG,
“PATRICK†AND “SANDIE,â€
THE KITTENS,
“FLOPSY,†“TOPSY,†“KIKITIKITAVI,†“ MOWGLI,â€
“ FROGGIE,â€
AND
ALL THE OTHERS OF THE FLUCTUATING FAMILY
OF
GUINEA-PIGS
(WHOSE NUMBERS ARE UNCERTAIN),
AND TO THE MEMORY OF
ALL JACKDAWS.
“DasH†is a Spaniel puppy with glossy coat as red as a Devon
cow, and long pendent ears crimpled in the latest fashion. He
has not yet grown up to the size of his paws, and so he stumbles
over them in going upstairs, and he tumbles over them in going
downstairs.
He eschews nothing in the way of food, but he chews everything,
from a water-colour cake to a collar. He galumphs about with
a wondering look in his brown eyes, for he cannot understand
why all the birds that fly overhead are not shot for him to carry
to his master.
“ Patrick†is a kitten with a coat as black and glossy as velvet,
and golden eyes. He is as lithe as Bagheera, the Black Panther,
with a profile like an Egyptian cat-god. But with all his beauty
he has no moral principles.
“ Sandie†is a bright tabby, a nervous little sprite, with a snub
nose and great honest eyes that fill up nearly all his face. He
is conscientious and grateful for notice, although he never seeks
it. He catches the mice, and Patrick steals them. When
Patrick finds Sandie in a comfortable place, he stands on him
and pretends to be very fond of him, and.so he squeezes him
out and takes the place himself.
As for the Guinea-pigs, they live in a stable. When they came
first, they were few in number, and their relationships “were
known to the children; but now the family tree is complicated.
“Flopsy†is Abyssinian, with long woolly locks, ‘ Topsy†is
smooth and piggy, and of the rest some are French and curly.
As for the Jackdaws, I can only say
“ De mortius nil nisi bonum,â€
which the boy (who learns Latin) translates,
‘“Of the dead there is nothing left but bones.â€
F.C. G,
PO eee el) OO Oe OD ae
A Tragedy in Bird Life.
CHAPTER:
HO killed Cock Robin ?â€
That was the question which
agitated all Featherland!
Ever since the unfortunate
victim of this dreadful crime
had been found in a dying
4 state, with his bright red vest
stained crimson by the life-blood flowing from
a wound where an arrow was deeply em-
bedded in his breast, nothing else had been
talked of. The rooks discussed it noisily
from morn to eve, and even in the night
they sometimes woke up and argued with
each other. The jays screamed and yelled
so excitedly over it that the owls complained
to the police that their rest was disturbed.
The starlings met every morning early and
whistled and chattered over every fresh rumour
connected with the tragedy.
3
4 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
The nightingales, who were musical, were
so much affected by the event that they sat
up all night in the moonlight singing mournful
and sentimental songs about ‘Love and
Death.†And the consequence was that they
caught bad colds, and by the end of June
they had lost their voices and could only croak.
The swifts and the swallows and the martins
darted about here, there, and everywhere,
picking up news. The warblers chatted about
the murder in the hedgerows and the woods,
and as for the members of the great finch
family, they went fairly mad. For suspicion
had fallen upon a certain Jack Sparrow, and
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†5
he had been arrested and charged with the
crime, and was now lying in prison awaiting
his trial. The sparrows generally were furious
that any one of their number should have
been suspected; they insisted that it was a
class persecution, because Cock Robin had
influential friends, whereas
Jack Sparrow was of humble
birth and had not the best
of reputations.
And desperate were the
wranglings and the scrim-
mages which went on every
day in Featherland when
parties happened to meet who
held different views as tO JOHN sparrow, THE
“Who killed Cock Robin.†rine
As the day fixed for the trial drew near
the excitement increased, and every item of
gossip which related in any way to the case was
eagerly seized upon and elaborated by those
who catered for the public—the journalists.
This much was known for certain: Lord Chief
Justice Owl would be the presiding judge; Sir
Honey Buzzard, Q.C., the Attorney-General,
would be the leading counsel for the prosecution,
6 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
and with him would be Mr. Goshawk, Q.C.,
the standing counsel for the Treasury.
For the defence, the only name which had
transpired was that of Sir Peregrine Falcon,
Q.C., but the prisoner’s case was in the hands
of Messrs. Kite and Co., the eminent criminal
lawyers, and there would be no lack of legal
assistance,
At last the day arrived for the commence-
ment of the trial, and all Featherland gave
itself up to the study of the historic drama
about to be played. Every approach to the
court was crowded to suffocation long before
the doors were opened. Once or twice some
mischievous little rascal of a tomtit would raise
a scream of “Cats!†and then a wild rush
of feet and feathers would ensue; but that
dangerous amusement was soon stopped when ~
a bullfinch policeman caught one of the little
scamps, and running him to the outskirts of
the crowd, hit him sharply in the small of his
back and sent him off screeching.
And when the doors were opened the crowd
found that the court was already quite full, for a
lot of privileged ones had obtained tickets from
an alderman, and had been admitted the night
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†7.
before. The crowd howled at these favoured
ones, but it was no use, so they relieved their
feelings by hooting and jeering Mr. Alderman
Puffin when he arrived in his carriage.
The wigged and gowned counsel made their
way through the press without much difficulty,
and no one interfered with them.
ARRIVAL OF THE JUDGE,
Then the Lord Chief Justice arrived, in a
neat carriage drawn by a white rabbit, and
driven by a jackdaw in dark livery. And the
old judge looked so benevolent and so harmless
as he blinked through his spectacles, that the
crowd cheered him.
Outside the court the crowd waited patiently
all day, eagerly questioning every policeman
8 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
and every messenger who showed himself.
And they even tried to waylay the little blue-
tits who had to take slips from the reporters
to the newspaper offices ; but when they found
that the slips were written in shorthand they
left the messengers alone, and they waited on
until the first editions of the evening papers
came out. The Evening Twitter was the first.
This paper had all through espoused the
Sparrow cause, and stood up stoutly for the
prisoner's innocence. And when, early in
the afternoon, a horde of young spadgers came
rushing frantically from the Zwetter office with
thick, damp folds of printed paper stowed
away over their shoulders and under their
wings, the crowd caught sight of the contents
bills, which the spadgers carried displayed from
their beaks, and in five minutes every paper
was bought up at double price. And no
wonder! for the bills ran thus in big lettering :-—
MURDER OF COCKY ROBIN.
TRIAL THIS DAY.
| DISGRACEFUL ATTEMPT TO PACK THE JURY.
STARTLING INCIDENT.
THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL OPENS THE CASE,
THE SCENE IN COURT.
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†9
Then another shouting, yelling mob of news-
paper urchins came rushing on with the first
edition of Zhe Leak, a paper devoted to the
interests of the upper classes, and which had,
ever since the murder, called on the Govern-
ment every day to discover the murderer and
bring him to justice.
And the contents bill of Zhe Beak ran
thus :—
THE MURDER OF MR. COCK ROBIN.
THE ACCUSED IN THE DOCK.
POWERFUL SPEECH BY THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL.
STARTLING EVIDENCE.
SENSATIONAL DISCLOSURES.
SCENES IN COURT.
THE TRIAL.
The curtain rose on the drama of this
memorable trial when, at ten o'clock precisely,
Lord Chief Justice Owl took his seat, after
gravely responding to the obeisance of the
court. The next moment all eyes were
directed to the dock as the prisoner was
brought in guarded by two stalwart bullfinch
10 “ WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
warders. He looked coolly round before
seating himself with an easy, almost defiant
air.
The jury list was then called over, and as
each one answered to his name and stepped
forward the prisoner Sparrow was evidently
keenly interested.
Although he had the right of challenging
any of the jurymen, he made no sign as, one
after the other, the fateful twelve were selected.
. Messrs. Jay, Jack Daw, Magpie, Starling,
Thrush, Blackbird, Cuckoo, Lark, Goldfinch,
Swallow, and Linnet passed into the box ; but
when the twelfth name was called, ‘‘ House
Martin!†the prisoner eagerly motioned to Mr.
Kite, his solicitor, and the next moment Sir
Peregrine Falcon was on his legs challenging
on Sparrow’s behalf.
“My lud,†he said, ‘‘Mr. House Martin
and the prisoner have been on unfriendly terms
for a considerable period in consequence of a
disputed title to certain property, and it would
be impossible to prevent the influence of
prejudice caused by such personal feeling.â€
The Attorney-General immediately sprang
up and informed the court that the dispute
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†11
about certain property referred to by his
learned friend was nothing more nor less than
the fact that the prisoner at one time took
forcible possession of a dwelling-house, the
property of Mr. Martin, and that a writ of
ejectment had to be obtained in order to evict
the intruder.
Sir Peregrine Falcon angrily protested
against this attempt to prejudice the character
of his client. Sir Honey Buzzard retorted,
and there was every prospect of a scene thus
early, when the Lord Chief Justice intervened
and checked the rising storm, suggesting that
it would be well in the interests of justice that
another juror should be substituted who had
no interest either for or against the prisoner.
Mr. Woodpecker was then called, and the
jury being complete, the twelve were solemnly
sworn in, and Mr. Jay was chosen as foreman.
Sir Honey Buzzard, as we know, was the
leading counsel for the prosecution, and with
him were Mr. Goshawk, Q.C., Mr. Kestrel,
and Mr. Shrike, whilst the prisoner was repre-
sented by Sir Peregrine Falcon, Q.C., Mr.
Merlin, Q.C., and Mr. Sparrow Hawk.
CHAPTER. 11
OT guilty,†pleaded the prisoner,
and then Sir Honey Buzzard
solemnly rose and, hitching his
gown on to his shoulders with
a characteristic movement, began
his opening address. With low,
impressive tones and dramatic
gestures he unfolded the gruesome details of
the crime which he said had ‘“ murderously
and foully cut short a life of bright promise
and deprived Featherland of one of her bright-
est ornaments.â€
The court was thrilled into horror-stricken
silence as the Attorney-General described the
finding of the victim’s body lying stretched on
the blood-stained grass, the bright eyes dimmed
with the glaze of approaching death, the dainty
legs drawn up in agony, and the scarlet vest
stained with the fast ebbing life-stream, with
12
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†13
the cruel murderer’s weapon still quivering in
the martyred breast. The shuddering audience
listened in silence—a silence only broken now
and then by the scratching of the judge’s quill
pen and the rustling of the counsel’s papers.
|
Mr Justice Owl 708
But as the Attorney-General proceeded the
strain became too great for some of the gentler
sex ; and one after another hysterical cries rang
through the Chamber of Justice, and five or
six females had to be carried out in fits.
The Lord Chief Justice was visibly annoyed
by these interruptions, and at last he could not
14 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
restrain his impatience, and he sternly re-
marked that if ‘‘ people had so little control
over their feelings as to make these unseemly,
although perhaps involuntary, demonstrations
he would have the court cleared.†This threat
had the desired effect, and the case proceeded.
“ Who killed Cock Robin?†declaimed Sir
Honey as he glared indignantly round the
CouMsER FOR YHE
Mrosecutian,
in a CT
=
court, and then, leaning forward, he looked at
the jury and, with extended forefinger, told
them that it was for them to say, when the
time came, whether or no the prisoner standing
in the dock, Sparrow, with his bow and arrow,
had killed Cock Robin. He would, he said,
produce evidence which would prove beyond
the shadow of a doubt that the wretched
prisoner was the murderer. That there was
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†15
a motive for the crime he would prove by the
evidence of a young widow lady, of whom the
prisoner was evidently violently enamoured,
and who, refusing his suit, had confided her
trusting heart and had promised her little hand
to the lover who now lay stark and dead in his
premature tomb. However painful it might
be for this unhappy and bereaved young
woman to give her evidence, she would not
shrink from her task, and she would be un-
deterred from this melancholy duty by any of
the foul machinations of enemies or by the
lying innuendoes of malicious tongues.
Here Sir Honey Buzzard turmed , partly
round and glared fiercely at Sir Peregrine and
the row of the prisoner's counsel. They,
however, took no notice of the shaft and smiled
sweetly in Mr. Attorney’s face, while their
leader calmly took a pinch of snuff. Then Sir
Honey Buzzard turned to the jury again, and,
lowering his voice to an impressive whisper,
said, ‘I shall put into the witness-box—and
you will be able to judge for yourselves as to
the witness's veracity—a priest who knelt by
the side of the dying victim, and who heard his
last words. These last words, gentlemen,
16 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
constitute an awful and, I venture to say,
an unanswerable indictment of the prisoner.â€
(Sensation.) ‘And, gentlemen, although no
eye saw the prisoner’s hand launch the fatal
arrow from the bow, yet I shall put before you
evidence that will leave no doubt on the minds
<
— SSS
RSs
SoS
S
=
eS
ws
Ss
SIR PEREGRINE FALCON, Q.C.
of any jury, more especially of such an excep-
tional jury as I see before me now, of John
Sparrow’s guilt.â€
The jurymen looked at each other approv-
ingly, and it was evident that an impression
had been made. Mr. Jay, the foreman, in
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†17
particular, appeared highly gratified, and his
topknot rose and swelled with pride.
After lunch, the Attorney-General resumed
his speech, and when the shades of evening fell
upon the court his flow of eloquence appeared
still undiminished, and the trial was adjourned
to the next day.
The Lvening Twitter came out with big
posters and headlines of phenomenal size :—
THIRD EDITION.
THE TRIAL.
THE PRISONER CALM AND CONFIDENT.
Tue ATTORNEY-GENERAL IS VENOMOUS BUT
WEAK.
THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION.
Poor JENNY WREN!
And later a Fifth Edition was heralded by
posters :—
“Tue ATTORNEY-GENERAL STILL MAUNDERING.â€
2
18 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
But the evening editions of Zhe Beak
announced its matter very differently :—
THE TRIAL.
JAcK SPARROW IN THE Dock.
IMPRESSIVE SPEECH BY THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL.
SENSATIONAL DISCLOSURES.
At ten o’clock punctually the next morning
the Lord Chief Justice resumed his seat, and
Sir Honey Buzzard rose to continue his speech.
In his peroration he made an earnest appeal in
a voice broken by emotion that the jury would
fearlessly do their duty, so that the sanctity
of life might be preserved inviolate in Feather-
land, and that justice might be enabled by
stern vindication to purge this horrible blood-
stain from the outraged soil on which Cock
Robin’s weltering corpse had been stretched by
the vile assassin’s hand.
As Sir Honey Buzzard spoke these con-
cluding words he faltered, and for a moment
almost broke down, whilst two large tears
slowly coursed down the slope of his aquiline
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†19
nose, and dropped over the point with a splash
on to his papers. Mr. Goshawk, Mr. Kestrel,
and Mr. Shrike covered their faces with their
robes and silently wept, and even the Lord
Chief Justice Owl was observed to blink, and
Mr..Jay, the foreman of the jury, sobbed un-
restrainedly. And a small butcher bird in the
gallery burst out crying, and was indignantly
S$ AEA ae }4
Whe Prisoner consults wi th
Ns Solicitor-
expelled by one of the officials. But the effect
of this painful scene was somewhat marred at
the critical moment by the fact that Sir
Peregrine Falcon, who had just before taken
an extra large pinch of snuff, flourished a big
bandana handkerchief and gave a tremendous
sneeze, and Mr. Sparrow Hawk, who had been
busy caricaturing Sir Honey on the back of his
brief, showed it to Mr. Merlin, who imme-
20 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
diately went into a fit of suppressed laughter.
And the Attorney-General sat down, glancing
a look of indignation at the learned counsel on
the other side.
Mr. Goshawk, Q.C., then rose, and, address-
ing his lordship, said that the first witness he
should call would be somewhat out of the order
of the evidence to be adduced, but it was
necessary to call that particular witness at
once, for reasons the justice of which, he felt
convinced, his ‘“ludship†would recognise.
Thomas Trout, whom he would now call, was
a waterman, who was on the fatal spot imme-
diately after the murder had been committed.
Unfortunately he suffered from extreme short-
ness of breath when he was removed for any
length of time from his natural element, and
therefore it was important that he should not
be kept waiting to give his evidence any longer
than was absolutely necessary. The prisoner's
counsel offering no objection to this course, the
usher called ‘‘ Thomas Trout.â€
A singular-looking figure responded to the
summons, and clambered with difficulty into
the witness-box. He was dressed in nautical
attire, and he stared round the court with eyes
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†21
that seemed to be almost starting from his head.
His breath was evidently painfully short, and
he absolutely gasped for breath as he answered
the opening questions put to him by Mr,
Goshawk.
CHAPTER III.
E spoke with an accent which
rendered him almost unin-
telligible, and the reporters
had the greatest difficulty in
following him, whilst the judge
remarked once or twice, with
evident irritation, that he could
not hear a single word. This was the
evidence-in-chief of Thomas Trout as nearly
as possible as he gave it :—
“My name is Thomas Trout. I am a
waterman, residing at Waterside. Ees, I
minds the day of the murder. I were in the
water as usual about dree o'clock, when I yurd
a kind o’ screechin’ and a hollerin’ ashore like,
and when I looks up the bank I sees there was
summat up. There was Cock Robin a lyin’ on
his back with the legs o’ mun a stickin’ up in
the air, and I seed a gurt beg dart like in his
22
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†23
stummick, and sez I to myself, ‘ Blest if it
b’aint a murder!’
‘Anybody near? LEes, surely, there was
Mr. Dragon Fly a kneelin’ down alongside and
a holdin’ up ’is ’ead. Whose ’ead? Why,
Why
WS Sh |,
& uy
MR. JAY, THE FOREMAN.
Cock Robin’s, 0’ coorse. Well, I slithered up
the bank, and Z
The Lord Chief Justice: ‘I couldn’t catch
that word, the witness said he ‘something’ up
the bank -
“ Slithered, yer Onour!†said the witness.
24 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
“What!†said the judge, holding his hand
up to his ear and leaning forward.
« Slithered, my lud! he says he slithered up
the bank.â€
“But what does he mean by ‘slithered’?â€
demanded the Lord Chief Justice somewhat
petulantly.
Mr. Woodpecker, one of the jury, timidly
remarked that it meant to scramble. Then the
witness proceeded, gasping painfully, for the
delay was visibly telling on his breath :—« I
slithered up the bank and got alongside the
corpse. He was moanin’ and groanin’ like,
and I got some water in a pannikin and guv
‘im, and then I caught the blood which was a
runnin’ down and dirtyin’ of the water. I
didn’t zee nobody ’cept Mr. Dragon Fly at
fust, and dree or vour minutes arterwards I zee
Vather Rook a rinnin’ up, and I gooed back to
the watter. I wos that short o’ breath.â€
The cross-examination was very short.
“You are sure you saw no one anywhere
about except Mr. Dragon Fly, and subse-
quently Father Rook?â€
“JT didn’t zee nobody but them two,†was
the answer,
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†25
“ Did you see the prisoner there?â€
“No, zur! I never zeed ’un at all.â€
‘One more question, Mr. Trout,†said Sir
Peregrine Falcon. ‘When you arrived on the
scene, was the arrow still sticking in the breast
of the deceased ?â€
‘‘He worn’t diseased, as I knows on,â€
MR. DRAGON FLY.
replied the witness, ‘“‘but the arrow was a
stickin’ in ’is stummick, as I said avore.â€
“Was the arrow removed whilst you were
there?†was the next question.
‘No, zur, it wor still a stickin’ up when I
gooed away back to the watter.â€
‘That will do,†said Sir Peregrine Falcon as
he sat down, and Thomas Trout waddled out
26 : “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
and hurried away, for his breath was nearly
exhausted by this time.
Dragon Fly was the next witness called, and
a slim, elegant figure, dressed in bright-
coloured clothes with alternate blue and yellow
stripes, stepped airily and jauntily forward.
The most striking feature about him was that
he had a pair of abnormally large eyes and
rather a fierce expression of countenance.
There was nothing in his evidence to throw
any light upon the authorship of the crime.
He stated that he suddenly came upon the
body of Cock Robin lying on the grass near
the waterside. An arrow was sticking in his
breast, and he was evidently dying. He (the
witness) shouted for help, and the last witness,
Mr. Trout, came up, but nothing could be
done. When Father Rook came on the scene,
he himself hurried away to inform the police
and to get medical assistance, if possible.
In his cross-examination he stated that he
did not attempt to remove the arrow, for he
feared it would only increase the bleeding.
Then Mr. Dragon Fly disappeared, and Father
Rook succeeded. He was a big, swarthy-
faced priest, dressed in clerical garb. He
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†27
claimed to be sworn upon a Darwin version of
the Testament, and some delay was caused by
a difficulty in obtaining one. When Sir Honey
Buzzard rose to examine, it was evident that
Father Rook was looked upon as an important
witness.
“Se did rot Secur ta meâ€
The reverend gentleman, who gave ‘“ The
Elms†as his address, stated in substance that,
hearing cries for assistance, he hurried towards
the scene of the murder, and found the two
former witnesses by the side of the deceased.
Thomas Trout, who complained cf his breath,
left immediately after he, Father Rook, arrived,
and he subsequently sent Mr. Dragon Fly
28 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
away to summon the police. The deceased
died a few minutes afterwards. He was sen-
sible to the last.
“Was he able to speak?†asked the
Attorney-General.
“He was just able to speak faintly,†replied
Father Rook.
“ Did you ask the deceased who had com-
mitted the outrage on him?â€
“T did,†answered the witness.
His reply produced a profound sensation in
court, and there was breathless silence as the
next question fell in measured tones from Sir
Honey Buzzard.
‘Tell the court, Father Rook, exactly what
was the question which you put to the deceased
and what his reply was.â€
“T said to the deceased, ‘Who has done
this?’ and he replied ‘ Sparrow !’â€
A thrill of sensation ran through the crowded
court. But, although this answer seemed to
the audience to seal the prisoner's doom, John
Sparrow sat perfectly unconcerned, and not a
muscle of his face moved,
CHAPTER ATV.
HEN Sir Peregrine Falcon rose
to cross-examine. He elicited
from the witness that the de-
ceased could only speak with
difficulty.
Q. “You have stated, Father
Rook, that the fatal arrow had
not been extracted from the wound ?â€
A. ‘Yes, that is so.â€
Q. “In your opinion, did the wound
interfere with the deceased’s power of
speech ?â€
A. “ Undoubtedly it did.â€
Q. “Did the deceased speak in a strong
voice, or weakly, as if the wound obstructed
the breathing ?â€
A. ‘He spoke very faintly and with
difficulty.â€
Q. ‘A fatal wound in the chest with the
29
30 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
arrow still embedded in the chest would
naturally impede clear utterance; was the
utterance of the deceased at all impeded?â€
A. “Certainly, the unfortunate gentleman
was gasping painfully for breath.â€
Sir Peregrine exchanged a triumphant glance
with Mr. Merlin.
Q. “Was Cock Robin gasping when he
replied to your question, Father Rook ?â€
ae ORE prousnt out the word ‘ paoâ€
with a gasp.’
Q. ‘‘He gasped when he uttered the word
‘Sparrow.’ Very well. Now, Father Rook,
what were the exact words of your question to
the deceased ?â€
A. “1 said, ‘Who has done this ?’â€
Q. “ Are you prepared to swear that you
used those exact words ?â€
A. “Certainly? To the best of my belief
those were the words I uttered.â€
Q. ‘You were naturally agitated at the dis-
tressing scene?â€
A. “1 was dreadfully distressed.â€
Q. “Did you make any written record of
those words ?â€
A. “No; but I remember them distinctly.â€
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†31
Q. ‘Now, Father Rook, you say that you
were in a state of great agitation ?â€
A. “J was.â€
Q. “ Of extreme agitation ?â€
ga Certainlya:
Q. ‘And although you were in this state of
extreme agitation, you are able to remember
precisely every single word of the question
which you asked the deceased ?â€
A. “1 remember distinctly that I asked the
deceased how his death was caused.â€
Q. “You asked him what was the cause of
his death?â€
eee Niece
Q. “ You swear to that?â€
A. “J do, undoubtedly.â€
Q. “ But you swore just now that you asked
the deceased ‘ Who has done this?’ now you
swear that your question was ‘ What was the
cause of his death ?’â€
A. ‘1 see no difference.â€
Q. “So that you are not prepared to swear
whether you asked the deceased ‘Who has
done this?’ or ‘What is the cause of this?’â€
_ A. “Iam under the impression that I asked
him, ‘ Who has done this ?’â€
32 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
Q. “ But you will not swear positively ?â€
A. “No, certainly. I see no importance in
the difference.â€
Q. “Very well. Now you say that when
the deceased spoke to you he was gasping for
breath ?â€
A. “Yes.
Q. ‘And you say that the arrow was stick-
ing in his breast ?â€
A. ‘It was.â€
Q. “In your opinion, did the unfortunate
gentleman suffer pain from the presence of
this arrow?â€
A. ‘He evidently suffered intense pain
from it.â€
Q. “ He only uttered one single word in
reply to your question?â€
A. “ Only one.â€
Q. “ And that was?â€
A. “ Sparrow.â€
Q. ‘* Now, Father Rook, attend to me—will
you swear that the word which the deceased
spoke was Sparrow and not Arrow ?â€
A, “It was Sparrow.â€
Q. “ There is a similarity of sound between
the two words?â€
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
2
i ae
A. “ Undoubtedly.â€
Q. “ He spoke faintly ?â€
hm ESS
Q. “ And with gasps ?â€
Ae EG.
Q. “ Now, sir, suppose that instead of
asking ‘Who has done this?’ you had asked,
‘What is the cause of this?’ would you
have been surprised if the answer had been
‘Arrow’ ?â€
A. “No, I suppose not. I dare say it
would have been a natural answer.â€
Q. “ Suppose, again, that the deceased had
desired to utter the word ‘ Arrow,’ would it
not have been natural in his then state,
speaking faintly and with gasps, that you
might have mistaken the word ‘ Arrow’ for
‘Sparrow’ ?â€
vol did notoccur tome.
Q. “You knew that there had been ill-feeling
between the deceased and the prisoner ?â€
A. “Yes, I knew that there had been some
quarrel.â€
Q. “You were not surprised, then, to hear
the word ‘ Sparrow’ ?â€
A. ‘No, I was not.â€
34 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
Q. “Your knowledge of this quarrel rendered
the supposed statement of the deceased more
probable?â€
A. “Certainly.â€
Q. “ But if you put the question which |
have suggested, what was the cause? ‘ Arrow’
would not have seemed to you unnatural,
seeing that the cause of death was an
arrow ?â€
A. “ No, perhaps not unnatural.â€
Q. ‘Then, Father Rook, are you, in the
presence of this natural suggestion, still pre-
pared to swear solemnly that the deceased
Cock Robin used the word ‘ Sparrow,’ and not
‘Arrow’? Remember, sir, that the life of
a fellow-creature may depend upon your
answer.â€
A. “1 would not swear positively,â€
Q. “Then you will not swear that the
deceased said ‘ Sparrow’ ?â€
A. “1 would rather not swear positively.â€
Q. “He may have said ‘arrow’ ?â€
A. ‘“ He may possibly have.â€
Q. “ You will not swear that he did not?â€
A. ‘No, I will not swear that he did
(eke aay
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†35
Sir Peregrine Falcon promptly sat down,
with a significant glance at the jury.
Sir Honey Buzzard rose to re-examine, but
the witness had evidently been startled by the
possible new light thrown on his evidence, and
P.C. BULLFINCH.
he refused to commit himself further to any
decided opinion.
The next witness was William Bullfinch,
a sturdy, stolid-looking~ police-officer, whose
number was B.24. He gave his evidence in
the concise, official manner peculiar to the
members of the force. He deposed, in answer
36 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
to questions, that from information received
he went to the prisoner’s residence and arrested
him for the murder of the deceased. He made
no resistance. He told the prisoner it was
no use denying the charge. He said to the
prisoner, ‘“‘ You had better come along quietly,
for you know you did it.†Prisoner replied,
“J, with my bow and arrow, I killed Cock
Robin.†Prisoner showed no signs of remorse.
Sir Honey. Buzzard sat down with a com-
placent smile, and Sir Peregrine Falcon at once
rose to cross-examine. He elicited from the
witness that he had himself referred to the
bow and arrow as the weapons by which the
deceased had met his death. And further,
that although the prisoner had certainly used
the words deposed to—namely, “I, with my
bow and arrow, | killed Cock Robin,†he did
not take any notice of any particular tone in
which he spoke. He understood it to be a
confession, but the remark might have been
made in indignation or in surprise.
“Did the prisoner,’ asked Sir Peregrine
Falcon, ‘‘raise his voice at the end of the
sentence as ifin surprise at the nature of the
charge ?â€
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†37
The police constable replied stolidly that
under the code of police regulations it was no
part of his duty to note any details of that
sort.
‘‘Didithe prisoner,†persisted Sir Peregrine,
‘speak that sentence as if there were a full
stop at the end, or a note of interrogation ?â€
The witness looked bewildered, and doggedly
answered that it was not his duty to know any-
thing about full stops or notes of interrogation,
all he had to do was to arrest the prisoner ;
and he did it.
“Now, sir, said Sir Peregrine Falcon,
sternly, “answer me this question. Did you,
when you arrested the prisoner, and previously
to this remark which you say the prisoner
made, caution him that anything which he
might say would be used in evidence against
him ?â€
P.C. Bullfinch fidgeted uncomfortably and
grew very red in the face.
The relentless counsel stood with his eyes
firmly fixed on the witness's face.
At last the answer came reluctantly, “ No,
sir, I did not.â€
Then said Sir Peregrine, addressing the
38 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
judge, “I shall submit, my lord, at the proper
time that under the circumstance of that
omission, the evidence of the witness shall not
be received as implicating the prisoner.â€
CHAPTER V.
T certainly,†said the Lord Chief
Justice, ‘was an omission of a
remarkable character, and I shall
instruct the jury on the point
when I sum up the case.â€
Sir Peregrine Falcon bowed, and
the prosecuting counsel looked blankly at each
other, and pretended to be very busy with their
briefs. “ Jenny Wren!†the Usher then called,
and there was a great sensation in the court
when a small trembling widow crept timidly
into the witness-box. She was dressed in deep
mourning, and the tiny little hand which held
a delicate white lace handkerchief shook with
agitation as she repeatedly wiped away the tears
which trickled down her face.
Sir Honey Buzzard was very gentle as he
drew the evidence from the interesting witness,
39
4o “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
and she replied in a thin, almost inaudible
voice, broken every now and then by sobs.
“Yes, she was a widow; her late husband’s
name was Jimpo Wren. He was killed in
Ireland last St. Stephen’s day by the Wren boys,
who murdered him with sticks and stones.â€
“Yes, she was engaged to be married next
spring to the deceased Cock Robin.†Here
the poor little widow broke down entirely for
a few minutes, but she was restored by a burnt
feather which the kind-hearted Usher applied
to her nose.
“Yes,†she said, when the examination
was resumed, “she was acquainted with the
prisoner. He had pursued her with his atten-
tions for some time, and had tried to induce
her to break off her engagement to Cock
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†41
Robin and marry him, Jack Sparrow. When
she refused him definitely Mr. Sparrow flew
into a great rage. Yes, he spoke very bitterly
about his rival and threatened him. When
he went away he said that ‘he would get a new
string to his bow.’ She did not understand
at the time what he meant, but when Cock
Robin was found to have been killed by a bow
and arrow she understood the meaning of the
threat only too well.â€
This evidence naturally created a great sensa-
tion, and all ears were eagerly strained when
Sir Peregrine Falcon began his cross-examina-
tion. He treated the witness with great con-
sideration, but he ‘was evidently impressed
with the necessity to weaken or counteract,
if possible, the damaging testimony which she
had given.
“TI have no desire,†Sir Peregrine said gently,
“to harrow your feelings unnecessarily, but my
duty to my client compels me to ask you one
or two questions. Was the prisoner, in your
opinion, in paying his attentions to you, actuated
by a sincere affection for you ?â€
“Yes,†replied the witness, “he was evi-
dently deeply in love.â€
42 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
“Very naturally so,†said the counsel.
“Very well! Now, did he show any resent-
ment towards you as well as.towards his more
fortunate rival ?â€
“Yes,†said Mrs. Wren, ‘‘ he was very angry
yyâ€
and said some very rude things to me
“ Exactly so!†Sir Peregrine broke in, inter-
rupting an apparent inclination on the part
of the witness to expand her reply.
“Exactly so! Now you have told us that
the prisoner, when he left you in anger, made
use of the remark that he would get a new
string to his bow.â€
“He did,†replied the witness.
Sir Peregrine paused, took a pinch of snuff,
and then quietly, in a conversational tone of
voice, asked Mrs. Wren whether she had ever
heard of a well-known expression of a lady
having two strings to her bow ?â€
“Ves, certainly ; the witness had often heard
the expression used.â€
In reply to further questions, she said that
she understood the meaning of the saying
to be, “A lady having two admirers at the
same time.â€
“Very well,†said Sir Peregrine. ‘ Now,
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†43
did the prisoner, during that interview, accuse
you of having encouraged his suit, whilst you
were engaged to another ?â€
“He did,†answered the witness indignantly,
“but it was utterly untrue. I never did such
a thing.â€
“Tt was extremely wrong of him, no doubt,â€
said Sir Peregrine, ‘‘ but he gave you to under-
stand that he was under that ungenerous
impression.â€
‘Yes, he certainly did,†replied the witness ;
“and I can’t understand what could have made
him think so.â€
“But he did think so,†persisted the
counsel.
“Yes, he did,†was the reply, ‘‘and he
ought to have been ashamed of himself for it,â€
replied the widow, casting a scornful glance
at the impassive face of the prisoner in the
dock.
“That being the case,†Sir Peregrine Falcon
quietly remarked, looking fixedly at the wit-
ness, ‘‘ you would not have been surprised if
the prisoner had said to you in his anger, ‘ You
have ¢wo strings to your bow!’â€
“T should not have been in the least sur-
44 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
prised ; it is just what I should have expected
from him,†replied Mrs. Wren, with an indig-
nant toss of her little head.
“You were naturally angry and agitated at
this ungenerous treatment of you by the
prisoner, Mrs. Wren?â€
“I was, and any lady would have been upset
if she had been in my place!â€
‘“ Now, Mrs. Wren, does it not strike you
that there is great similarity of sound between
the words ‘a new string to my bow,’ and ‘ ¢wo
strings to your bow ?’â€
‘Yes, there is a certain sort of similarity,
but s
Sir Peregrine Falcon: ‘Very well! now,
Mrs. Wren, I must ask you to remember that
the life of a fellow-creature may depend upon
your answer, and a fellow-creature whose only
fault towards yourself has been that he loved
you ‘not wisely but too well.’ Will you swear
that the prisoner did not in his ungenerous
anger say to you, ‘You have ¢wo strings to
your bow’ ?â€
The witness evidently was impressed with
the possibility of the alternative presented to
her, and hesitatingly she faltered out :
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†45
‘No, I would rather not swear.â€
“Then,†said Sir Peregrine, raising his voice
and looking sternly for the first time at the
trembling little widow, “you will not swear
whether the prisoner said, ‘I will get a new
string to my bow,’ or whether he said, ‘ You’ve
got two strings to your bow ?’â€
The witness flushed, and looked timidly
round as if to seek escape from the question,
but Sir Peregrine Falcon’s blazing eyes were
fixed upon her, and at last the significant reply
fell from her lips, ‘‘ No, I can’t swear.â€
“Very well!†was the satisfied comment of
the great advocate as he sat down, and then the
court adjourned.
The several editions of the Avenzng Twitter
advertised in huge type—
THE GREAT TRIAL.
POLICE EVIDENCE.
46 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
A REVELATION.
THE WIDOW HAS TWO STRINGS TO HER BOw.
STARTLING ADMISSIONS,
BRILLIANT CROSS-EXAMINATION BY SIR PEREGRINE
FALCON.
THE END NEAR.
But The Leak still stuck to its colours, and
its contents bill gave the following headings :—
THE MURDER TRIAL.
SENSATIONAL DISCLOSURES.
PAINFUL SCENE IN CouRT.
THE Morive ror THE’ MURDER.
The next morning the court was more
crowded than ever, for there was a general
impression abroad that the case for the prosecu-
tion was drawing to a close.
The first witness called was ‘* Brown Owl,†a
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†47
russet-faced old creature, who described himself
as a grave-digger. He deposed that whilst he
was digging a grave for the corpse of the de-
ceased he overheard a conversation between two
of the Sparrow family, relatives of the prisoner.
But at this point Sir Peregrine Falcon in-
BROWN OWL, THE GRAVE-DIGGER.
tervened, and energetically objected to the
reception of this evidence, which could not, he
said, be admitted against the prisoner.
The Lord Chief Justice decided at once that
such hearsay evidence could not be received.
There was a hurried consultation between
the counsel for the prosecution, and then Sir
48 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
Honey Buzzard rose with a somewhat dejected
air and asked for a short adjournment, in order
that he might consult with his colleagues as to
the course they should pursue.
The Lord Chief Justice assenting, the court
adjourned for half an hour.
CHAPTER avin
O one but the judge and the
counsel engaged in the case left
the court, but the moment the
Lord Chief Justice had disap-
peared behind the curtains of his
retiring-room a very Babel of voices
arose, chatterings and twitterings,
as the interested audience eagerly discussed the
position of affairs.
‘« Silence !â€â€ shouted the usher, at the expira-
tion of the half-hour, and again the stately
figure and thoughtful face of the Lord Chief
Justice appeared, and an instantaneous silence
~ succeeded to the confusion of tongues.
Sir Honey Buzzard rose and announced with
a feeble attempt at nonchalance, ‘“‘ That is the
case for the prosecution, my lud.â€
A thrill of surprise ran through the court,
and even the stolid prisoner was observed to
49 4
50 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
smile. The little tomtit messengers were
instantly flitting out of court with hurriedly
scribbled flimsies, and in a quarter of an hour
the Evening Twitter was being shouted out
in every street—
THE GREAT TRIAL.
COLLAPSE OF THE PROSECUTION.
Str Honey Buzzarp THRows UP THE SPONGE.
There was a momentary pause in court, and
then amid a breathless silence Sir Peregrine
Falcon rose and applied to the Lord Chief
Justice for an adjournment until the next morn-
ing, in order to arrange his defence, in con-
sequence of the unexpected close of the case
for the other side.
There was no objection raised to this course,
and the sitting was immediately adjourned.
In the evening edition of 7he Leak the only
allusion to the great case was in small type :—
THE Cock RoBIN MURDER.
CLOSE OF THE CASE FOR THE PROSECUTION,
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†51
and then in large type—
ANOTHER OUTRAGE BY A SPARROW.
A Martin’s House SEIZED AND WRECKED.
The next morning, at ten o'clock, the second
act of the great drama opened with the rising
of Sir Peregrine Falcon to address the jury for
the defence.
It was an address which, from beginning to
end, fully sustained the brilliant reputation of
the great advocate, the greatest, perhaps, of
modern times. Step by step he followed the
evidence put forward by the prosecution, and
piece by piece he tore that evidence into shreds
and tatters, and flung the fragments aside in
a burning torrent of indignant eloquence. He
analysed one by one the different witnesses
who had appeared in the witness-box, and
his peroration held his audience in breathless
suspense until the very last word had been
uttered, and then the pent-up feelings of the
court burst forth into a volume of cheers, which
even the stern officialism of the sacred precincts
failed to check,
52 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
In- indignant tones he denounced the
monstrous conspiracy which lurked under the
cloak of this State prosecution, a conspiracy of
the classes against the masses, of a flaunting
aristocracy against a humble and _ plebeian
democracy, of the scarlet-vested Robin against
the fustian-garbed Sparrow. Had it been a
common brown spadger who had been found
dead, and had suspicion fallen upon a dainty
Robin, would there have been this great out-
burst of moral indignation? No! the body
would have been quietly consigned to the
obscurity of a casual grave, and Robin would
still have flaunted his sleek respectability in the
gilded halls of the upper ten of Birdland.
Jack Sparrow was a common fellow! ergo—
hang him! Cock Robin was a gentleman—
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†53
ergo, canonize him! But he, Sir Peregrine
Falcon, felt confident that the law—which
recognised no distinctions of caste, no difference
between rich and poor—the law was safe in
the hands of such an intelligent jury as that to
which the interests of justice in this important
case had been confided.
SIR PEREGRINE ADDRESSING THE JURY.
2
“Gentlemen of the jury,†cried the great
advocate in conclusion, ‘‘ the scales of justice
are in your hands; let no prejudice blind your
moral vision; let no passion bias your judg-
ment. If the humble prisoner at the bar did,
in your opinion, commit this dreadful crime,
your duty is clear; but if, after carefully
54 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
weighing the evidence, every link of which I
have shown you conclusively is rotten to the
core, you come to the conclusion—and I
respectfully submit that you can come to no
other conclusion—that the prisoner is innocent,
then you will fearlessly pronounce him ‘ Not
guilty, and you will have the proud satis-
faction of knowing that you have rescued from
the web of a tangled conspiracy a victim whose
only crime is that he is humble and poor, that
he is a Sparrow, and not a Robin.â€
When the ushers at last succeeded in reducing
the excited occupants of the court to silence,
Sir Honey Buzzard rose to reply for the
prosecution.
But he spoke hesitatingly and without
confidence. He referred deferentially and with
overstrained humility to the brilliant speech of
his learned brother Sir Peregrine Falcon, and
expressed his sense of his own inferiority. He
drew out the dry bones of his case, dusted
them over, and tried to rearrange them, but the
skeleton had been so ruthlessly dislocated by
the breakdown of the evidence and by the
oratory of the great counsel for the defence
that his task was a hopeless one, and when he
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†55
sat down every one felt that the conclusion was
a foregone one. But Mr. Justice Owl, to the
surprise of every one, gravely announced that
he should adjourn the court for a week, to
enable him to arrange his voluminous notes
before he commenced his summing-up. In the
evening paper the 7Zzz¢fer announced in
glowing phrases and double-leaded headings
that—
IT WAS OVER EXCEPT THE SHOUTING.
UTTER COLLAPSE OF THE CONSPIRACY.
WHO ARE THE RZAL CRIMINALS?
and The Beak put it—
BRILLIANT SPEECH OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL.
ADJOURNMENT OF THE Court.
During the week which ensued the partisans
of both sides were busy. The Robin party
went to and fro declaring that there could be
56 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
no doubt of Sparrow’s guilt. Everything, they
said, had been proved up to the hilt, and
they darkly hinted that the prosecution, had it
chosen, could have proved many other crimes,
even blacker still, against the prisoner.
The Sparrow party, on the other hand,
boldly denounced the prosecution, and argued
that if things were as they ought to be Sir
Honey Buzzard himself should be in the dock.
Mr. Justice Owl retired with his twenty
volumes of notes to his country seat, Oak
Hall, and every now and then a rumour came
to the outer world that the old judge had been
seen in the dead of night writing busily. A
nightjar declared that he had seen him walking
to and fro in his room learning his speech
by heart, and a society journal—7he Flea—
published an article, ‘Mr. Justice Owl at
Home,†in which it was stated that so con-
scientious and painstaking was the judge that
since the commencement of the Robin murder
case he had been seen by moonlight practising
archery. The week passed away, and again
the court assembled. Mr. Justice Owl com-
menced his summing up at once, and in a
speech which lasted from ten o’clock until four
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†57
reviewed the whole case. There was nothing
remarkable in the matter of the address. He
told the jury that it was for them to weigh
the value of the evidence adduced by the
prosecution. If they believed it, they would
undoubtedly be obliged, however reluctantly,
to return a verdict in accordance with their
SIR HONEY BUZZARD IS NOT PLEASED.
finding ; but if they considered the evidence
inconclusive or untrustworthy, then they were
bound to give the prisoner the benefit of the
doubt. This was the substance of the summing
up, although it took a long time to express
it. And, indeed, there were some carping
critics in Featherland who said that the learned
judge need not have consumed a whole week
in preparing so little.
55 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?â€
There was a murmur of excitement in the
court as the jury retired to consider their
verdict. Mr. Justice Owl disappeared into
his private room to dine, and presently a
pungent odour of roast mice pervaded the
court.
Would the jury agree? Would they find
a verdict quickly, or would they have to be
locked up all night without food and water?
Every now and then from the jurymen’s
retiring-room came a clatter and a jabber of
tongues. The strident voice of Mr. Jay could
be clearly distinguished, and the rapid chatter-
ing of Mr. Starling.
Half an hour only had passed when there
was a sudden hush, and it was whispered that
the jury were coming back. Mr. Justice Owl
resumed his seat, and every eye was fixed
on the jury box asone by one the twelve
jurymen filed in and took their places. The
usual formalities were quickly gone through,
and then every ear was strained to hear the
fateful words as Mr. Jay pronounced the
verdict—NOT GUILTY!
A wild scene of excitement ensued, which
the ushers strove in vain to control. The
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†59
Sparrows were frantic in their expressions of
delight at the result. They screamed and
yelled and chattered, while the Warblers
slipped quietly out with angry scowls. The
court dissolved away, and the great trial was
AY:
'
ACQUIT Fel!
over. ‘A large crowd waited outside for the
appearance of the ex-prisoner, and when he
came out he was seized upon and carried off
shoulder high by an enthusiastic crowd. The
Leak announced the result that evening in
very small type :—
THE Ropin MurDER.
VERDICT.
60 “WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?’
But the LAvening Twitter came out with
gigantic lettering :—
THE CONSPIRACY SMASHED!
BRAVO, JURYMEN !
JACK SPARROW ACQUITTED.
TRIUMPHANT VINDICATION.
SIR HONEY BUZZARD BAFFLED!
So ended the great trial; but even to-day the
Warblers and all the Robin party darkly hint
that they could have brought more evidence
had they thought it necessary, and they
express their conviction that even if Jack
Sparrow did not actually murder Cock Robin
yet he was quite capable of committing that
or some other crime, and, in fact, that he ought
to have done it in order to sustain his evil
reputation.
But the Sparrow party hold stoutly by the
verdict, and if any foolish Warbler should
“WHO KILLED COCK ROBIN?†61
chance to refer to the old tradition that John
Sparrow with his bow and arrow feloniously
slew Cock Robin he will be hunted and jeered
at throughout Featherland, and he will be
lucky if he escape with undamaged plumage.
THEVGREAT BELTLE WAT
63
ASSASSINATION.
Little Longicorn is murdered by a Calasoma (sycophanta).
CHAP TE Rei:
MURDER.
HERE was great excitement
in Beetleland. A most foul
murder had been done. A little
Longicorn, as harmless as any of
his diminutive tribe, had been
brutally beaten to death by a
truculent chief of the Calasome beetles, and
his body dragged away. But for an accident
the murderer would, perhaps, never have been
known, and the crime would have been only
one more case of mysterious disappearance.
It chanced, however, that another of the
Longicorn tribe was an eye-witness of the cruel
deed; he came upon the scene just as the
Calasoma had beaten the life out of his victim
and was dragging the corpse away by the hind
legs into the tangled recesses of the forest.
67
68 THE GREAT BEETLE WAR.
It was too late for help, so the little Longi-
corn prudently hid himself amidst the wood
sorrel, and when the murderer had disappeared
he hurried away with breathless haste to bear
the tidings of the brutal deed to the Longicorn
village. Trembling with fear lest he might
cross the path of any of the bloodthirsty tribe,
he threaded his way through the thick under-
growth until he came to the place where his
tribesmen had: their camp.
They had captured a fine, fat caterpillar that
morning, and were dragging it with united
effort to their larder in the root of a rotten tree,
when the messenger rushed out of the wood
and told them the dismal tidings.
In an instant the Longicorn camp was in a
state of wild and angry excitement. The deed
must be avenged, but how? It was useless for
such little beetles as they were to attack so
ferocious a tribe as the Calasome, every one
of whom was a giant by comparison with their
little selves.
Some one suggested that the Bombardier
beetles, the hereditary enemies of the
Calasomz, would help them; but, alas! the
Bombardiers were far away on a raiding ex-
CONSTERNATION,
a\n eye-witness brings the news to the Longicorn Village.
CONSULTATION.
The Longicorns meet in Council and resolve to solicit aid from the Stag Beetles.
War Dance of the Ambassadors,
MURDER. 73
pedition, and they had taken all their artillery
with them.
There was only one hope possible, and that
was that the Stag beetles, who had befriended
them more than once, would once more help
and enable them to avenge the murder.
CHAP LE REID
THE ADVENTURES OF THE AMBASSADORS.
O they resolved to send ambas-
sadors to Coleopteron, the King
of the Stag beetles, to beg for
his aid, and, for this purpose,
they selected six of their
strongest and best warriors for
the perilous duty—for perilous
it was likely to be.
The palace of King Coleopteron was at least
two long days’ journey distant, and the way
was through the tangled forest, where lurked
many deadly foes, and across wide and danger-
ous rivers, too deep to wade and full of fearsome
water-beasts. ;
But the ambassadors were armed with spears
and shields, and before they departed they
performed a vigorous war dance, in which
they went through a pantomimic slaying of
74
PROGRESSION,
‘The Ambassadors on the March crossing Hemlock Bridge,
THE ADVENTURES OF THE AMBASSADORS. 77
all possible enemies, whether of air, earth, or
water.
And then, full of enthusiasm and courage,
they started on their adventurous march.
Cautiously they threaded their way through
the intricate mazes of the vegetation, ever on
the look-out for the enemy; they hurried
through the aisles of the tall fern forests,
shadowed by the gigantic fronds which waved
overhead far up the towering stems.
Once they heard a great rustling among the
dead leaves, and they had only just time enough
to conceal themselves, when a great mottled
snake glided swiftly across their path. Another
time they heard a scrunching noise as if some
great wild beast were devouring his prey, and
peering through between the openings in the
tall grass they caught a glimpse of a huge grey-
brown bristly monster, and seeing it to be
Hedgehog, the great beetle-killer, they fled
for their lives.
At last they came to a ravine at the bottom
of which flowed a river, and they were at their
wits’ end to know how to cross it. In vain
they ‘explored the banks to right and left to
find some crossing-place. They would have
78 THE GREAT BEETLE WAR.
made a raft and floated across, but a great
water-newt was watching them with hungry
eyes, and, like a great slimy alligator, he kept
abreast of them as they moved up and down
the side of the river, every now and then
raising his flat, ugly head above the surface
of the stream, and following them with his
cold, cruel-looking eyes.
And they could see, too, every now and
then, Dyticus, the great blood-thirsty water-
beetle. He would come to the surface, pro-
trude his shiny back, and then dive again, and
they knew what their fate would be if he should
rise under their raft and upset it.
But, at last, to their great joy, they came
to where a broken branch of a hemlock-tree
lay across the river from bank to bank, and
they clambered across carefully. And Triton,
the great water-newt, raised himself head and
shoulders on to a rock in the middle of the
stream down below, and he opened his mouth
and angrily lashed his tail in his disappointment.
But the perils had only begun, for as they
passed through a dense jungle in the Ant
Country a crowd of those fierce, venomous
little warriors suddenly rushed out from one
INTERRUPTION,
The party is suddenly attacked by Ants, and one of the Longicorns is wounded.
THE ADVENTURES OF THE AMBASSADORS. 81
of their subterranean strongholds and fero-
ciously attacked the Longicorn ambassadors.
They hurled myriads of little, keen-pointed
spears, they clung to the legs of the beetles,
and bit them savagely, trying to bear them to
the ground. The Longicorns fought valiantly,
but no matter how many of the fierce little
creatures they killed, fresh hordes always took
their places and renewed the attacks. So they
fled, fighting as they went. All the six Longi-
corns were wounded, and one so seriously that
his companions had to carry him.
At last they managed to outstrip their pur-
suers, and as evening was coming on they
came to the banks of a wide, swift stream,
and they resolved to dare the perils of the
water rather than spend the night on land, for
they knew that there were shrew mice about—
those noisome, long-snouted beetle-slayers,
who would show them no mercy if they should
fall into their clutches.
And just as they had completed their raft,
on which they laid their wounded companion,
and had raised a feather sail to waft them
across the water, one of these great beasts
came out of the wood towards them, with his
6
82 THE GREAT BEETLE WAR.
nose twitching, and they hastily pushed away
from shore, and launched out on the bosom of
the swiftly-running river.
But they were out of the frying-pan only to
fall into the fire.
NAVIGATION.
Dreading the perils of the shore, they make a raft and take to the water just in time
to escape from a Shrew.
Cll PE Roe
ADVENTURES ON THE ROAD.
HE raft went drifting down the
stream, gliding over the pools,
whirling round in the eddies,
plunging and rocking over the
shallow rapids. Twilight was
darkening into the dusk of night
before the belated little beetles
found themselves nearing the other shore ;
but, just as they floated over a still pool under
the high bank, there was a sudden swirling
of the water, and up through the glassy depths
rushed a huge monster with glaring eyes and
wide-gaping jaws. Its great glistening body
was covered with silvery scales, with here
and there along the sides great spots of
carmine. —
Escape was impossible ; the terrible creature
85
86 THE GREAT BEETLE WAR.
rose head and shoulders clear out of the water,
catching the edge of the raft and upsetting it,
and in a moment nothing was visible but the
tenantless raft rocking forlornly upon the
waves of the swiftly widening circles in the
centre of which the disaster had taken place.
And presently even these ripples faded away
and the smooth surface of the pool showed no
trace of tragedy.
Some minutes later two miserable, half-
drowned little figures with drooping antennz
might have been seen crawling painfully up
the bank. These were the only survivors:
they had lost their spears and shields, and
had barely escaped with their lives. Wet and
dispirited, they toiled up the cliff, and when
they reached the top and looked around them,
they realised the hopelessness of their position.
It was nearly dark, the country was entirely
strange to them, and in their wanderings and
driftings they had lost all idea of direction.
But presently, as they were dragging them-
selves wearily and discontentedly along, they
fortunately chanced to meet a burly but in-
offensive sexton beetle, one of the Geotrupes,
who was plodding homeward after his day’s
IMMERSION.
INFORMATION,
PROTECTION.
An Aquarian Outrage. The two survivors wander about wet and miserable till a
labourer (Geotrupes) 'directs them to THE, GLOwworm's INN !
ADVENTURES ON THE ROAD. gl
labour with pickaxe over. his shoulder. It
was a gleam of hope for the two little
Longicorns, who were just going, in their
despair, to lay themselves down under a deadly-
nightshade bush to die, like the babes in the
wood.
But the honest sexton soon cheered them
up.
“A hundred yards further on,†said he,
‘you'll see a light shining in the wood, and
if you make your way to it, you'll find the
Glowworm Inn, and there you can get a fire
to dry yourselves by, and beds for the
night.â€
So they thanked the kindly labourer, and
hurried on as they were directed.
Presently, sure enough, they saw a phos-
phorescent light burning softly but brightly,
and on reaching it they found under a spread-
ing fungus a warm welcome from the good
landlady, Mrs. Glowworm.
The warmth and light and food soon re-
freshed the weary travellers, and, forgetting
their troubles, they fell fast asleep, and only
awoke when the rays of the next morning's
sun shone down upon them. And the kind-
92 THE GREAT BEETLE WAR.
ness of the glowworms did not end here, for
they started their guests off mounted on a pair
of powerful grasshopper horses, and with
full directions how to reach the palace of King
Coleopteron.
LOCOMOTION.
The two Ambassadors continue their journey.
CHAPTER IV.
THE KING'S CASTLE.
\ i), T was a beautiful morning, and
he eN away bounded the two steeds bear-
ay, «ing their riders, whose hearts were
cheered with renewed hopes of
success.
Rivers, ravines, and other obstacles
mattered little now ; the grasshoppers bounded
over them all like kangaroos, and the two little
Longicorns no longer feared any lurking foes.
They saw the water-newts glaring up with
disappointed eyes from the streams and pools
across which they leaped. They cared nothing
for the savage water-beetles, and they laughed
derisively when they spied a ferocious-looking
Rove beetle crouched beneath some daisies,
snapping his jaws, and curling his vicious-
looking tail over his back. For they knew
95
96 THE GREAT BEETLE WAR.
that their i could outstrip and
overleap even the swiftest of the devil’s coach-
horses.
And at last, in the early afternoon, they
reached the approach to the palace of the Stag
beetle king, outside which was posted a great
Stag sentinel, armed with walnut-shell shield
and thorn-spiked staff.
The two ambassadors dismounted, and
humbly approaching the formidable-looking
guard, they explained the nature of their
mission and craved an audience of the king.
APPLICATION,
They arrive at the King of the Stag Beetles’ Castle.
“I
CHAPTER V:
RESCUE AND RETRIBUTION.
O dirty and travel-stained were
the little envoys that the guard
at first hesitated to admit them,
but eventually he passed them
in and transferred them to
another official, who, after they
had hurriedly cleaned themselves with their
legs as well as they could, ushered them
into the presence of the great Stag beetle
king.
It was a splendid chamber in which they
found themselves, the roof supported by rows
of gigantic fir cones, and a line on either side
of great warriors armed with shields and spears,
led up to the throne where King Coleopteron
was sitting in state.
It was a throne of the brightest velvety
99
100 THE GREAT PEETLE WAR,
green moss. At the back were butterfly wings,
and overhead, as a canopy, was a daisy.
INTERCESSION,
Bowing humbly as they advanced the two
little beetles approached the throne, and told
the king the object of their mission,
SUPPLICATION,
RESCUE AND RETRIBUTION. 103
King Coleopteron at first flatly refused to
have anything to do with the matter and would
not listen to the pleadings of the Longicorn
ambassadors, who at last retired with sorrow-
ful hearts.
But the queen had heard the story of the
perils the little strangers had passed through on
their journey, and she interested herself in
their cause. She coaxed the king, even
going down on her knees to him, to such
purpose, that at last King Coleopteron gave
way, and ordered the drummer-in-chief
to the army to call the fighting beetles to-
gether.
The drum was a skin-covered walnut-shell,
and so deafening a noise did the drummer
produce on it, that the ambassadors had to
stop their ears. But no sooner did the great
boum-boum begin to roll through the air than,
through the dense foliage below great curving
horns and spear points came in view, all
converging.
And when the warriors had all assembled,
the king addressed them and gave them his
orders for the expedition. Then he made
them all pass in review before him. The
104 THE GREAT BEETLE WAR.
king took up his position with the two am-
bassadors beside him, and the army filed past
PREPARATION.
him, doing a war-dance step, rattling their
spears and thorn clubs against their nut-shell
shields.
TICIPATION.
AN
RESCUE AND RETRIBUTION. 107
And when the last great warrior had danced
past the king, they headed direct for the
Longicorn village, guided by the ambassadors.
There were no shrew mice or ants to threaten
on the homeward journey, and soon they drew
near to their destination. For some little time
before they came in sight of the village, the
quick ears of the little envoys had caught the
sounds of unusual disturbance. And presently
as they emerged from a glade, they came upon
a scene of terrible conflict.
Before them was a tangled crowd of beetles
fighting desperately. The Longicorns were
surrounded by a swarm of fierce black and
yellow savages armed mostly with round
shields and heavy bone clubs. They were the
dreaded Necrophori, the grave-diggers as
they were generally called, and they were
fighting with their usual ferocity.
The Longicorns were hard pressed; many
of them lay dead or wounded, and some were
being carried away by their friends in hopes of
reaching some place of safety.
Into the sé/¢e rushed the great Stag beetles,
and soon the tide of battle turned. The grave-
diggers fled hastily, leaving many dead and
108 THE GREAT BEETLE WAR.
maimed ones behind, and disappeared into the
jungle,
It was the evil Calasome who had instigated
them to the attack, and they hoped to have
exterminated the Longicorns before their allies
could come to the rescue.
Then the Stag beetles marched straight for
the Calasoma camp, which they stormed and
destroyed. The murderer, who was the cause
of all the trouble, tried to escape, but he was
recognised and promptly hanged in front of a
spider’s web, in a weird spot where the deadly-
nightshade grew. And there they left his
body swinging, whilst underneath three Rove
beetles, devil’s coach-horses as folk call them,
crouched and waited.
INSTIGATION.
MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG §
CHRISTMAS DINNER.
MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG’S
CHRISTMAS DINNER.
R. AND MRS. HEDGE-
HOG had already accepted
an invitation from Farmer
Mole, of Molechamber, to
eat their Christmas dinner
we
= a
=F Oe
when an envelope came ornamented with a
with him and his family, but
great coat of arms, and inside the envelope a
card with—
Str Ropent avd Lapy SQUIRREL
request the pleasure of Mr. and Mrs.
HEDGEHOG’s company to dinner at 5 p.m.
on Christmas Day. RSVP.
Beech Tree Hall.
Mrs. H made up her mind at once that
the engagement with Mr. Mole must be got
113 8
lig MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG’S
out of some way or another. Mr. Hedgehog
protested feebly: “My dear, how can we?
We've promised the Moles.†‘ Nonsense,
my love,†said Mrs. H ; “we must go to
the Squirrels ; it will give us such a standing
in the county to be able to say that we visit
with them. I'll write to Mr. Mole and make
some excuse.â€
«But, my dear,†still protested the weaker
half, “‘ we shall have to dress to go there, and
we can’t get our things made in time, for
everybody is asleep just now; and besides,
Mole gives such a capital dinner, and we can
go to Molechamber just as we are.â€
Mrs. Hedgehog’s reply settled the question.
“Don’t be vulgar, Mr. Hedgehog, and pray
do try to think of something else besides your
food. I had no idea you were so greedy.
The Moles are all very well in their way, but
they are very common, and their manners at
table are simply disgusting, and see what
great, big, coarse hands they have! I can
hardly bear to sit with them. I wouldn't give
up the chance of going to the Squirrels’, no!
not for fifty Moles!â€
So Mrs. Hedgehog, having silenced the
CHRISTMAS DINNER. 115
scruples of her husband, sat down and wrote
a naughty fibbing note to her dear Mr. Mole,
telling him how sorry she was to find that after
THE INVITATION.
accepting his £zzd invitation they had remem-
bered a long-standing promise to spend their
Christmas Day with their dear friends Sir
Rodent and Lady Squirrel. This was a
wicked story, of course, and she and her hus-
116 MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG’S
band were well punished for it. The next
thing to be done was to reply to the Squirrels’
card, and that worried Mrs. H very much,
for she could not make out what the letters
R.S:VeP. meant. Wire 1
and after suggesting all sorts of absurd mean-
was no wiser,
ings he was sent off by his wife to ask an old
owl who lived near them, and who was
thought to be very wise because he was always
hooting at something. Mr. Owl did not like
being disturbed, and he was very cross, and
told Mr. Hedgehog that he ought to be asleep
at that time of the year, and not coming
to bother him. But Mr. Hedgehog knew that
if he went home without knowing the meaning
of the mysterious letters his wife would be
worse even than Mr. Owl, and so he per-
severed until the old bird, who really did not
know the meaning himself, but was only pre-
tending to be angry, so as not to expose his
ignorance, screamed out: “Don’t know what
R.S.V.P. means! Why, you silly creature,
it's what you are going to have for dinner,
reptiles, snails, vipers, and pills!â€
Mr. Hedgehog smacked his lips, for he was
a little bit greedy, and hurried back to tell his
CHRISTMAS DINNER, 117
wife. ‘Of course,†said she, “I knew it must
be something about the dinner.â€
So a letter was sent accepting the Squirrels’
invitation, and the pair busied themselves to
get their clothes ready in time. This they
found very difficult, for nearly all the tailors
and dressmakers were either fast asleep or had
gone away to spend the winter, but, thanks
to Mrs. Hedgehog’s perseverance, before
Christmas Day arrived she had a nice new
gown and a pair of satin shoes, and Mr. H
had a glossy tail coat, shiny shoes, and all the
rest that was necessary.
Now, Lady Squirrel had been just as anxious
that the Hedgehogs should not come as they
were anxious to go. It was Sir Rodent
Squirrel’s wish that they should be invited ; he
was going to stand for the county at the next
election, and he thought it would make him
popular if he got the character of being hospit-
able.
‘They are sure not to come, my dear,†said
he, “so it will only be the trouble of asking
them. I don’t suppose they have any dress
clothes, and they know that our mode of living
is different,†i
118 MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG'S
“Dreadful creatures!†said Lady Squirrel,
with a shudder; ‘I’m told that they eat slugs
and snakes and all those horrid kinds of things ;
they won't get them here.â€
Now, Lady Squirrel happened to have
heard in some way that Mr. Mole was going
to have a dinner party on Christmas Day, and
that the Hedgehogs were going to it, so she
smiled sweetly on Sir Rodent and said it would
be a pleasure to please him, and wouldn't it
look kind and friendly if they asked them for
Christmas Day. Sir Rodent demurred a little
to this, but gave way to his charming lady,
and thus the card of invitation was sent.
Angry enough she was when she _ got
Mrs. Hedgehog’s letter, but she could not
say a word to Sir Rodent about her little
plan, so she contented herself by care-
fully arranging a dinner which should not
tend to satisfy the appetites of her intended
guests.
‘‘Of course, my dear,†she said to her hus-
band, “ we could not think of inviting any one
else here to meet such people.â€
‘A cheerful sort of day we shall have,â€â€™
growled he; but it could not be helped, and
CHRISTMAS DINNER. — 119
he was already repenting of his idea of buying
popularity.
Christmas Day arrived, with snow thick on
the ground and very cold.
Mr. and Mrs. Hedgehog dressed themselves
with very great care, and with very great
trouble too, for the lady found that her style
of figure did not at all suit the fashionable
costume, and as for poor Hedgehog, it was a
dreadful struggle to get his clothes on, for his
bristles were very much in the way, and would
stick through the cloth, and his shiny shoes
pinched him cruelly. But pride must have a
pinch, and so they valiantly overcame their
difficulties and started off through the deep
snow towards Beech Tree Hall. A queer
couple they looked as they trudged uncomfort-
ably along, and Farmer Mole, who happened
to get a peep at them as they passed, chuckled
to himself as he noticed their hungry, melan-
choly looks.
When they arrived at the Hall another
difficulty faced them. They had heard that
the Hall was situated at the top of a slope, but
they had no idea until then that the slope was
120 MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG'S
nothing more or less than the trunk of a huge
tree which towered straight up aloft. The
Squirrels had both thought of this when they
MR.!AND MRS,|IHEDGEHOGI'SET OFF TO THE SQUIRRELS’.
invited the Hedgehogs; and the latter couple
would certainly have had to go home again
had not a Squirrel living close by been roused
by the scratching and scrambling, and given
CHRISTMAS DINNER. 121
them a friendly tail up to the entrance of Sir
Rodent’s mansion.
Never did Mr. and Mrs. Hedgehog feel
so utterly dissatisfied with each other's personal
appearance as when they shuffled into the room
where their host and hostess were waiting to
receive them.
Mr. Hedgehog blushed with shame when he
noticed the contrast between his wife, with her
comical, awkward figure, and her ill-fitting
gown, and Lady Squirrel, with her easy, well-
bred grace, her slim waist, and her elegant
costume, with its flowing, bushy train. As for
Mrs. H , she felt quite cross with her good
man when she saw how piggy he looked, and
how badly his coat fitted, and how baggy his
trousers were, and how the bristles would stick
out all over him. And Sir Rodent was so differ-
ent, so aristocratic-looking, swch beautiful eyes,
and so well dressed, that she resolved to give
her husband a piece of her mind when they got
home about his neglect of his personal appear-
ance, and his low, vulgar manners.
The memory of the dinner that followed was
ever afterwards a nightmare to the two hungry
guests. Everything around them was refined
122 MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG’S
and elegant. The room and the table were
decorated with beautiful flowers preserved in
some mysterious’ way, and with exquisitely
coloured and marked birds’ eggs festooned
around the walls, and the whole was illumined
by a soft phosphorescent light which seemed
to glow from the ceiling.
The Hedgehogs told their friends afterwards
that this light came from hundreds of glow-
worms, but . Farmer Mole said that was
nonsense, it was only rotten wood.
They drank out of nutshells, cut and
polished until they looked like crystal, and
everything was so unlike their own home
surroundings that they felt like fish out of
water, and did not know what to do, or where >
to look or what to say. But the eating part
was worse than all. To the poor bewildered
_ pair there seemed to he nothing but nuts, and
nuts, and nuts! MWHazel-nuts, filberts, beech-
nuts and even Barcelona nuts, composed the
successive courses. The host and hostess with
their sharp white teeth opened their nuts and
ate with evident enjoyment, but the poor
Hedgehogs grew hungrier and hungrier. In
vain they longed for the luscious worm, the
CHRISTMAS DINNER. 123
delicate beetle with the crackly skin, the
crushed snake, or even the humble snail.
Alas! there were none of these delicious
viands, but only nuts, and nuts, and nuts!
A VERY SLOW PARTY.
There was a gleam of hope when a course
of acorns and wheat-ears followed, and they
tried to make shift with this poor fare, but
their plates were whipped away before they
could do any good, and then came nuts again !
124 MR, AND MRS, HEDGEHOG’S
With sinking hearts, and stomachs too, Mr.
and Mrs. Hedgehog sat and glared at each
other reproachfully and angrily. Of course,
the host and hostess were polite to their guests,
and pressed their delicacies on them. Sir
Rodent would say, ‘You'll find these Barce-
lona nuts very good, Mr. Hedgehog, I can
recommend them;†and Lady Squirrel would
urge Mrs. Hedgehog to try another filbert ;
but although. the harassed couple knew little
about aristocratic society, they knew enough to
be quite sure that it was better to tell any
number of fibs rather than be thought unpolite
and vulgar, so they both smiled sweetly as
well as they could for their aching stomachs,
and declared that they had dined heartily, for,
as Mrs. H assured Lady Squirrel confi-
dentially, ‘We have so little appetite at this
time of the year!†Which was a dreadful
falsehood, for they were hungry enough to
eat a rabbit if they could have got hold of one.
At last this dreadful phantom of a Christmas
dinner was ended, but they still had something
to endure. Gladly would they have made
some excuse and hurried away to Molechamber,
and thrown themselves upon Farmer Mole's
CHRISTMAS DINNER. 125
hospitality, but for a long, weary time Mr.
Hedgehog had to sit and talk politics with Sir
Rodent, and pretend to agree with him,
although really they differed on every single
point, and Mrs. Hedgehog had to sit with
Lady Squirrel and confess in succession that
she could not play, or sing, or draw, or paint,
or ride, or waltz, or play lawn-tennis or any-
thing else.
But even bad quarters of an hour come to an
end, and at last the guests had taken leave ot
their entertainers, and thanked them profusely
for “such a delightful evening.†When they
got outside there was the slope to descend,
and no friendly tail to help them. But they
were desperate, and, putting aside all their
company manners, they tore off their coat,
dress, and boots, and rolling themselves into
tight balls they flung themselves off on to the
ground below. Then they unrolled, none the
worse for the tumble, and snatching up their
clothes they made for home as fast as they
could through the deep snow, hungry and weary
and sleepy. Oh! if they could only have come
_ across a fat slug or a young bird or a wriggling
snake—but, alas! the young birds had grown
126 MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG’S
old and didn’t tumble out of their nests now,
and the slugs and the snakes were fast asleep
down below or had gone away, nobody knows
where. It was too late to go to Molechamber,
for they would all be in bed by this time and
asleep for another month or two.
The miserable couple reached their home,
and cheerless enough it looked after all the
glitter and glare of Beech Tree Hall, without
even the fag-end of a worm or the leg of a gnat
to appease their hunger.
Bitterly they reproached each other, each
declaring it was the other’s fault.
Mr. Hedgehog lost his temper, flung his
shiny shoes at his wife’s head, tore off the tails
of his new dress coat, danced on his beautiful
white shirt front, and bit his glossy trousers into
holes. Then he went for Mrs. H ’s new
gown and damaged that so badly that she went
into hysterics, and as he couldn’t get any water
to throw over her, he rolled himself into a
prickly ball, and went to sleep; and Mrs.
H soon did the same; and there they
slept until the spring came, dreaming all the
while of their terrible Christmas dinner.
And, oh! how wild they were when they
CHRISTMAS DINNER. 127
heard afterwards of all the feasting and fun
and frolic there had been that day at Farmer
Mole’s! Preserved slugs, fat and juicy! potted
THE JOLLY MOLES,
worms! filleted vipers! beetles, little crisp,
ones and big oily ones! and then such rollick-
ing country dances, with six little Moles
sitting in the gallery playing the music.
128 MR. AND MRS. HEDGEHOG.
“Never again!†said Mr. and Mrs. Hedge-
hog sadly, when they heard of all these things,
“ Never again will we go out of our own proper
sphere to mix with the aristocracy !â€
THE LITTLE JACKDAW.
£39 9
THE LITTLE JACKDAW.
UR little jackdaw is dead, but
little as he was he has left
a big gap behind him in the
house. Sometimes we fancy
we hear his cheery ‘‘ squawk,â€
and we find ourselves listen-
ing for the pattering of his
little black toes in the passages or in the
house.
His life was short, but as merry as mischief
could make it. Mischief was his one guiding
motive from morning to night every day that
he lived, until death, which might have let
such a little jokester alone, gave him fits and
stopped his pranks. I suppose that jackdaws
in their natural wild condition, with the
responsibilities of feeding themselves and their
families, have not much time for play, and
perhaps it is well that this should be so, for
131
132 THE LITTLE JACKDAW.
if they were all like our Jack they would soon
put the machinery of nature out of gear.
The little black imps like to make their
homes in a cathedral or a church tower, which
is a part of their system of practical joking,
and they haunt these sacred buildings in order
that people down below may think they are
good, pious, orthodox, ecclesiastical creatures.
And so they wheel and circle round the
cathedral tower, mocking and laughing at, and
dropping things on the portly Bishop and the
dignified old Dean, and they make rude
remarks about the Canons and the choir boys
and the half-dozen of old ladies who live in
the Close in the odour of sanctity, and who
attend the daily services.
Our jackdaw came from the church tower
at Chigwell, and his progenitors may possibly
have learned lessons from Barnaby Rudge’s
raven,
“Tm a devil!†that uncanny bird used to
croak. And the jackdaws, no doubt, applauded
the sentiment and tried to live up to it.
Our bird kept up the family traditions.
He came to us when he was quite young,
and when we had to ram food down into his
THE LITTLE JACKDAW. I
uo
we
interior to the accompaniment of choking,
gurgling, and squawking.
He was given asa present to the children,
and for the first few days he belonged to them.
THE OTHER CHAP.
After that we all belonged to him. We bought
a cage when we knew he was coming. It
was in the perpendicular cane style of
architecture.
Jack lived inside for a day or two, until he
134 THE LITTLE JACKDAW.
knew better, and then when he found that
the world outside the wicker walls was so
much bigger than the one inside, he refused
to use it except as a dormitory. When he
had once passed up the garden steps into the
wonderland of the house, where the big and
little men and women lived, he sternly and
stubbornly declined to enter the wattle door
again until the last thing at night, when he
was tired and sleepy, and all the big suns and
moons were extinguished. He did not mind
sitting on the roof of the cage, and occasionally
he would open the door and look round to see
that his sleeping perch was in order; but he
would keep his wary little eyes upon the
entrance, and if any one tried to close it, out
he would scramble in a fury of beak and claws,
and fight for freedom.
If all jackdaws possessed the same
mechanical genius as Jack, no church tower
would be safe. A glance of his keen little
eyes, black beads set in grey-blue circles, and
he would understand all the details of make
and mechanism. He found out how everything
was made, so that he could unmake it. If
one thing fitted into another, he would set
THE LITTLE JACKDAW. 138
to work to unfit it. He discovered, with
disastrous results to table-covers and carpets,
that corks could be extracted from ink-bottles.
He studied the sewing-machine until he knew
exactly how to stop its beneficent career.
He would remove some portions of the
machinery from one place where it was needed
MISCHIEF,
and locate it somewhere else where it could
do nothing, and sometimes he would snap the
thread or rush the spindle off. But perhaps
his greatest pleasure in life was to get hold
of things that people wanted most particularly
and to hide them. A dog hides a bone
because he thinks he may want it again, but
Jack secreted things simply because he thought
other people might want them, He loved to
136 -THE LITTLE JACKDAW.
see me sit down and draw; he would jump
on to the table and get absorbed in some
object, and then he would make a sudden rush
for my bottle of liquid Indian ink, whisk out
the cork, and fly with it to the window-sill.
Sometimes when the cork was fastened in too
firmly he would take the bottle and all, and
and then there would be a big black smear,
and bang words, and blotting-paper and rub-
bing and efforts at concealment, for each one
of the big and little men and women who
belonged to Jack would try to cover up his
sins, lest the aggregate might be too big an
indictment against the little sinner. There is
a sort of natural history delusion that jackdaws
are attracted by glittering objects, such as
silver spoons and diamond rings. Our experi-
ence is that it doesn’t matter whether the
objects which are hidden are glittering or not:
the only consideration is whether they are
urgently needed by the legitimate owners. Our
Jack did not trouble his head a bit about forks
or spoons. It was much more interesting to
him to open the clock face and stop the hands
from going round, or to get hold of a purse and
hide the coins in different places, the shillings
‘THE LITTLE JACKDAW. 137
under a pincushion, the half-crowns under the
looking-glass, and the gold under the bed-
clothes. And on one occasion he was met
proudly walking out of. a room with a gold
watch which he had extracted from a watch-
case, the spring mechanism of which he had
“HE'’LL NEVER THINK OF LOOKING HERE FOR IT,â€
successfully solved. But a box of matches
was a keener joy to him than any gold or
silver trinkets. He revelled in matches. At
first he splintered the boxes with digs of his
sharp beak, but he soon found out the telescopic
principle of their manufacture, and then he
would open the box and take the matches
out one by one,
138 THE LITTLE JACKDAW.
How he managed to ignite the matches the
spirit of mischief only knows, but that he did
succeed there is no doubt, for one day the
housemaid fortunately went into my dressing-
room just in time to extinguish a small con-
flagration that he had started on a number
of Truth.
But the one object on which he concentrated
all the mischievous intensity of his little soul,
was a scrubby, worn fragment of black india-
rubber, which he knew that I treasured. It
was a fragment that I clung to with a hatred
more fascinating even than affection. It was
a misshapen, miserable, little thing, which had
a fiendish trick of sneaking inside the covers
of books, or in the midst of loose papers, or
slipping slyly down my sloping drawing-board
and jumping off on the floor, where it would
hide itself in a patch of shadow, or on a piece
of carpet which matched itself in tone. How
many angry hours have I spent on my knees,
but not, alas! in prayer, groping about to find
that wretched object, knocking my head
against the corners of funiture, picking up
on the way lost drawing-pins waiting for me
with their business sides uppermost! Jack
THE LITTLE JACKDAW. 139
soon grasped the meaning of this piece of
india-rubber, and it never left his mind.
I would be sitting working busily, with
the disengaged hand guarding the precious
ink-bottle, when the little black body would
swoop across my drawing, and in a second
AN
NNKUA
, 4 He
Ad
} Me i
‘} i Ki y
ii
A GOOD HIDING-PLACE,
Jack would be on the window-ledge, with the
precious india-rubber in his mouth, watching
out of the corners of his eyes for my next
move. I knew that if I pursued him, the
precious object would be dropped into the
damp area, so I had to dissemble and pretend
that it was a matter of no importance. Then
140 THE LITTLE JACKDAW.
Jack would hop back and look about for a
hiding-place. The line of shadow behind the
leg of the table would sometimes be selected,
sometimes the object would be pushed down
between the back and the seat of a chair, or
the corner of the carpet or mat would be lifted
up, the stolen article deposited, and then
covered up.
Soon after Jack came to us we discovered
that he was suffering from a favourite jackdaw
complaint, cramp in the legs, so we used to
anoint the little ebony sticks and feet with.
Elliman’s Embrocation (this is not an advertise-
ment) and he was soon cured.
We clipped the primary feathers of one wing,
but it did not interfere much with his power
of flight. He used his wings, however, mostly
for the purpose of getting into the house, and
he never showed any inclination to join his
wild kinsfolk. When a flight of rooks passes
overhead there are pretty sure to be some
jackdaws amongst them, and whenever Jack
heard the familiar cries, he would look up
and watch them eagerly, but there was no
attempt to join them.
He did not live long enough to master
THE LITTLE JACKDAW. 141
human language, but he invented a language of
his own, founded on a bird’s-eye view of the
general effect of human beings’ conversation.
And he would go about, when he was happy,
chattering, prattling, chuckling, and chortling to
himself with evident appreciation of his powers.
But there was one note which he only used under
a certain condition. He delighted to get into
a cupboard or a drawer, and directly he got
inside, his tail would quiver and his eyes would
gleam, and he would utter little sharp, short
shrieks. There was evidently some peculiar
fascination in these situations. Perhaps it may
have been a link of memory with the paternal
and tribal habitation in the church tower.
But perhaps the most wonderful thing about
our little black pet was his strength of mind,
his power of will, and the determined way
in which he ordered his daily walk of life.
He slept in his cage on the landing, and
at seven o'clock he would be awake, waiting
for the servants to come and take him down-
stairs. If they were late he would grow im-
patient, stamp about, and try to open the door.
Directly he was released, he would rush to the
beetle-trap, lift off the cover, and have a look
142 THE LITTLE JACKDAW.
round the inside to see what sort of sport there
had been during the night. Then he would
start his breakfast, beetle after beetle was
picked out and swallowed, sometimes as many
as forty or fifty.
JACK’S BREAKFAST.
After, breakfast came the bath. A large
round metal basin was kept on the grass plot
in the garden, and filled with water. When
the weather was cold, the children raised the
temperature with hot water.
Jack would get up on the rim and walk
round and round half-a-dozen times before
THE LITTLE JACKDAW. 143
plunging in. Then he would paddle about
a little, and at last he would sit down, duck
his head, and splash the water all over him
by flapping his wings vigorously. When he
came out he looked like a little drowned
= TAT
— anata AN
ya fn
we i) i Ai! (i
au ONY
(1) dy
\ it
JACK’S BATH.
creature, or like the Jackdaw ot Rheims after
the curse had worked. From the first he made
up his mind where his drying ground should
be. This was on the landing at the top of the
stairs in front of a mirror. Here he would
preen and arrange his plumage, varying his
toilet by walking backward and forward with
144 THE LITTLE JACKDAW.
the other jackdaw, which was so exactly like
himself, and which mimicked everything he
did.
Then, during the morning, he visited the
different rooms and helped with the painting
and drawing. The sewing machine, too, had
to be looked after, flies and wasps had to be
hunted. He killed and swallowed wasps by
the score, but he drew a line at daddy-long-
legs. If one came in his way, he would nip
it and then carefully insert the squirming bunch
of legs between the leaves of a book, put it
down with one foot, and leave it there.
Dinner was an institution for him, and he
knew the dinner-bell as well as any one in
the house. There was always a chance of
making a sudden swoop upon some choice
dish. A stewed or a fried tomato, or a beak-
ful of red-currant jelly, or a slice of hot juicy
mutton trailed across a clean table-cloth, was
always exciting, and roused the enthusiasm
of the big and little men and women, who
always cried “Oh, Jack!†but who never
beat him.
Then in the evening, when he was getting
tired, and the lamps were lighted, he would
THE LITILE JACKDAW. 145
get on the back of his mistress’s chair, tuck
his head into some place in his back and go to
sleep.
Once he provoked me to anger: he was
in my dressing-room, and he got on my
sll
WIM
GOING UPSTAIRS TO DRY.
shoulder and dug me viciously on the back of
my neck. I chivied him round the room, he
flew round and round, and then perched on the
top of my looking-glass, and waited for his
chance.
I stooped to open my collar-drawer ; in a
10
145 THE LITTLE JACKDAW.
second he was on me, gave me a stab and
a wrench with his sharp beak, and before I
could turn on him, he had flown right out of
the room and upstairs. I found him a quarter
of an hour afterwards sitting demurely and
innocently. I took no notice of him, but
directly I left the room he flew after me on
to my arm and looked up with an impudent
leer, as.if he meant to say, ‘‘I got the best of
that, didn’t I?â€
He was not afraid of anything or anybody.
Even Smut, the jungle cat, a formidable
poacher, had no terrors for him ; Smut who,
whenever he heard a dog’s bark always
rushed in the direction of the sound, and
who would ride out to the front gate on the
back of the biggest dog, would give a wide
berth to little Jack. He would give an angry
mew whenever he saw the imp hopping to-
wards him, but he would take the longest
way round. And when Jack got the chance,
puss would lose a beakful of fur, or would get
a tweak on his twitching tail.
Jack had a temper, just like a human being.
If, when he was arranging his toilet, one of
his feathers did not settle in its proper place,
THE LITTLE JACKDAW, 147
or if his wings did not fit in at once, he would
give an impatient jerk at the offending part,
and utter an angry little hiss, as if to say,
“ Bother you, why don’t you get into your
place!â€
It was exactly like the action of an impatient
man struggling with a dress tie or an obstinate
collar-stud.
JACK AND THE JUNGLE CAT.
Only a little jackdaw! And what good was
it to usP
Well, he kept us very much alive whilst he
lived, and he widened the world for us.
Every little feathered mite that flits or flies
or hops about us is one of Jack’s relations. It
is not merely a bird, it is a creature with a
mind and a will and a character, it loves, and
148 THE LITTLE JACKDAW,
hates, and plays, and has to curl up his toes
one day and die just like ourselves.
Jack has made us brothers and sisters ‘‘ to
the mountains†and “to the sun and moon.’
And so he did not live in vain.
d d
QUAINT PETS.
149
QUAINT PETS.
Y obituary notice of “ The
Little Jackdaw,†in the
Christmas number of The
Westminster Budget, has
interested so many of those
| who love animals and birds,
that I am tempted to write another chapter.
The pathway of my memory carries me back
through a long perspective, dotted with graves
of dead pets of all kinds. Almost the first of
these, back in the dim distance of childhood,
covers all that there once was of Jocko, a
Kestrel hawk. We respected him, for we
were young and bloodthirsty, and hawks we
looked upon as soldiers among the birds. But
his attachment to us was sometimes greater
than ours to him. For at that age we wore
short socks, and there were intervals of bare
legs, and when Jocko was in evil mood he
151
152 QUAINT PETS.
would attach himself with beak and claws to
these lucid intervals, with results more satis-
factory to himself than to us.
He died an awe-inspiring death.
One night there was a terrible thunderstorm
THE LUCID INTERVAL.
and in the morning Jocko was found under a
shrub stiff and stark, with a dark line down his
breast, where the electric fluid had struck him.
We buried him respectfully, feeling that a
measure of reflected importance rested upon
us for owning a bird that had required a
Heaven-sent flash of lightning to kill him.
QUAINT PETS. 153
Next comes a tablet sacred to the memory
of a favourite cat, who went over the garden
wall one day, and never, never came back.
We mourned him long and tearfully, and for
nearly forty years his fate was veiled in
mystery. But only the other day, in the
National Liberal Club, the story was revealed
to me by a man who, as a boy, had seen the
AFTER THE THUNDERSTORM.
murder and the burial on the other side of the
wall. The murderer was a parson, but the boy
is now a Progressive member of the London
School Board, and I have forgiven them.
Poor Tim would have been dead any way by
this time.
Dotted along the path are the tombs of
jackdaws. Generally, they were accidentally
drowned in their thirst for bathing. ‘Don’t
git into de tank before you knows how you
154 QUAINT PETS.
gwine to git out again†is a lesson jackdaws
will not learn. Indeed, a jackdaw undertaker
might with safety keep in stock brass plates
with the names blank, but with the inscription,
“Accidentally drowned.†One of these birds
used to play a trick, which was a great amuse-
ment, but only to the youngsters.
My grandfather was great on gardening, and
he used, at the proper seasons, to bring choice
seeds. These he would bury solemnly in the
sure and certain hope of their coming up there-
after as flowers, and he would plant little
wooden tombstone slips inscribed with the
names of these thereafter-to-grow-up flowers.
Then he would go away happy.
But Jack would all the time be lying low
with his blue eyes watching the operation, and
directly the old gentleman was at a safe
distance the little black imp would trip up
jauntily, and, chuckling with glee, would
demolish the cemetery and upset all the buried
hopes.
I tried once to paint a portrait of a jackdaw.
If you want to imagine the result, try to think
of a mischievous lunatic sitting to a portrait-
painter, never keeping still for a moment, but
QUAINT PETS, 155
making dashes at the brushes and oil tubes,
swooping at and trying to tear the canvas, and
you will get somewhere near reality. Then I
tried to make a chalk study of the bird. Jack
foiled this by nipping off the ends of my chalks,
tearing up the stumps, and poking holes
“MY TURN NOW.â€
through the paper, and in the intervals he
would rush on to the drawing-board, put his
head sideways, and scoop up with his beak all
the blackest parts. This last trick was very
effective.
Hedgehogs have come and gone—they
mostly burrowed and disappeared—and no
156 QUAINT PETS.
one knoweth when and where they came
up again.
But one hedgehog hibernated for a couple
of seasons under the kitchen floor; he went
down a rat-hole as the winter came on, and
rose again in the spring. The second time he
did this he nearly caused murder and sudden
death. A maid-servant who had come into the
house after Piggy had gone down, and there-
fore knew nothing of his existence, was sitting
by herself one calm evening in the spring, and.
presently she heard unearthly sounds of scratch-
ing and scraping in one corner. “ Rats!†she
said to herself, and prepared to scream and
jump up on a chair, and as she looked Piggy’s
snout, surrounded with a halo of bristles,
emerged into the New Year. The girl is
all right again now.
Another little hedgeboar slept the winter
through in a bag of feathers, and when those
feathers were wanted, and a female hand was
put in to feel the beautiful, soft, fluffy feathers,
somebody screamed! Some people think
hedgehogs are not very lively. Put one on
a table, with twenty or thirty good fat slugs,
and you won't say he is not lively then. He
QUAINT PETS. 157
rushes about and gorges his victims greedily,
but he takes care to rub each one vigorously
with his paws, rolling it over and over so as
to remove the slime. If any of my young
friends should try this experiment, they had
better first cover the table with newspapers,
or there may be a row about the table-cloth.
Most children pass through the pet-keeping
FLOPSY.
stage. They have the whooping-cough of
white mice, and the measles of guinea-pigs
and rabbits. In my young folks’ menagerie
there is an Abyssinian guinea-pig, Flopsy, with
long white coat. When she is running about
she looks just like a bit of a white woolly mat,
and so draggled does she get that, after a con-
ference, the children have decided that she is
to wear a pair of pyjamas before she is allowed
out again on the grass.
158 QUAINT PETS.
I have heard lately from kindly corre-
spondents of still stranger pets. One gentle-
man tells me that he kept for some time a tame
gamecock. It would roost on his knee as he
sat in his easy-chair after dinner, and follow
him about the garden like a dog. And it had
its likes and dislikes about visitors. One day
THE GAMECOCK AND THE TRAMP.
a woman tramp came begging, and to her horror
something jumped suddenly upon her hat, and
tried to tear it off, flapping her screaming face
with its wings. This was the gamecock’s idea
of getting rid of a tramp.
Another gentleman has told me of a tame
duck which not only hated the water, but which
was eventually drowned on being put into a
pond to cleanse it.
QUAIN? PETS. 159
The other day I was introduced, by the kind-
ness of some ladies at Tufnell Park, who are
constant readers of Zhe Westminster Budget,
to a delightful duck pet, Molly by name. She
is a beautiful full-grown white duck, who has
grown up from ducklinghood under the loving
care of her mistresses. She was swimming
about happily in a big metal tub, and when
MOLLY'S TUB.
she saw.one of her friends come into the
garden with me, she bowed and waggled her
tail and gagegled with delight. When she was
lifted out, she waddled along very upright,
following her mistress wherever she went.
Molly sleeps at night in a box in the house,
and if the members of the household come
home late, she quacks until they go down
and wish her good-night.
160 QUAINT PETS.
She seemed to have an idea yesterday that
a Westminster Budget man had come to make
copy out of her, for after luncheon she came
quacking to the garden door, and it was a
pretty sight to see her squatting down on her
mistress’s lap, and allowing one to stroke her
neck as if she had been a cat.
MOLLY AND HER MISTRESS.
Coming back to jackdaws, I have heard
from a lady who has kept one of these “ bird-
monkeys,†as she aptly calls them. She says:
“JT have had a jackdaw for four years; she
was not a young bird when she came, but her
love of fun and mischief has in no way dimi-
nished. One thing worthy of notice is the
QUAINT PETS. 161
large increase in her vocabulary, due to her
long intercourse with human beings. ‘Char’
has at least a dozen inflections, with distinct
meanings attached to them, and her laugh,
when some evil deed has been successfully
perpetrated, is quite contagious.†Certainly
one of the great charms of keeping quaint pets
is to notice how quickly they accommodate
themselves to the new and wonderful life which
opens up to them by contact with human beings
without guns. A person must be selfish and
callous indeed who does not feel attracted by
the trustfulness and quaint ways of these little
wild creatures of fur and feathers, who have
got over their hereditary and reasonable dread
of man as the destroyer.
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
BY AN INDIA-RUBBER MAN.
DON’T know how I came to be,
or if I was ever young. I have
) just a dim recollection of having
been put into a cardboard box,
long, long ago, and lying there in
the dark, seeing nothing and
hearing nothing. I suppose I must have been
alive, but not very much so, for the only sensa-
tion J had was a smell of india-rubber and paint.
I did not even know what I was. I might
have been’ a girl doll, or a Punch, or a clown,
or even an india-rubber animal or bird; but
this uncertainty did not trouble me, for I
thought of nothing. But one day I suddenly
woke up and found myself alive. There was
a loud explosion, the cover of my box flew off
and a big hand came in and lifted me out.
At first the light was so dazzling that I could
see nothing, but presently I was able to look
165
166 A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
about me. I found myself in a wonderful sort
of palace, which seemed to be crowded with all
the treasures of Toyland. On the floor were
herds of horses, all with proudly arched necks
and great glittering eyes, and flowing manes
and tails. The bigger ones were on rockers,
and the smaller ones were on wheels. There
were carts and carriages of every shape and
size, some with horses, some without. On the
shelves were rows and rows of dolls of all sizes,
golden-haired, brown-haired, and black-haired.
Some were dressed very much, and others
very little, and they all stared straight in front
of them. Woolly rabbits, monkeys, sheep,
donkeys, and cats; farmyards with cows and
sheds and bright green “crinkle†trees ;
Noah’s Arks both great and small; steam-
engines, cabs, omnibuses, boats, yachts, Punch
and Judy shows, toy theatres, boxes of puzzles
and boxes of bricks with beautiful pictures out-
side—all these things and heaps besides, tin
soldiers and sailors, cannons, trumpets, swords,
and all the material for toy wars. Just opposite
to me was a big looking-glass, and there I saw
‘myself for the first time. It is a wonderful
thing to come upon yourself suddenly like that,
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY. 167
and to see what you are like! I was dressed
all in white, with a tall, conical hat picked out
with vermilion ; there was a frilled collar round
my neck, edged with red; the buttons on my
tunic were of the same colour; and my shoes
were scarlet, with little silver rosettes.
‘“ Pierrot!†said the young lady who had
taken me out of the box, and she turned me
round and round to inspect me.
“Put him in the window,†said another
voice, and I was lifted up to a shelf which
looked out upon the street. The shelf was
crowded with india-rubber animals of all sorts
—tigers, cats, dogs, elephants, and camels—
and there was so little room there that the
young lady had to put me astride a beautiful
white elephant which stood with its trunk close
up against the glass. Of course I apologised
to the elephant for getting on his back, telling
him that it was not my fault, but he was very
good about it, and said he was glad of my
company.
“T don’t care for these animals up here,†he
whispered to me through his trunk. ‘ The
tigers are so bad-tempered and try to bite my
legs, and the camels are so stupid. As for
168 A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
the cats, they are always quarrelling with the
dogs.â€
A good friend to me was that elephant, as
you will see by-and-by. He had been in the
window for some time, and was able to tell
me about the things that went on all day long
in the busy street. He pointed out the poor
horses skating and sliding and slipping about
on the asphalte rink which some funny people
have made in the roadway. He showed me
all the gentlemen streaming eastward in the
morning, looking fresh and smart, and then
pouring back again westward in the evening,
looking tired and cross. A great gilt ginger-
bread coach rolled by, and he said it was the
Lord Mayor’s. A fat, prosperous-looking man,
with a red face and a lot of heavy jewellery,
passed the window, and the elephant told me
he was a rich man who had made his money
by selling drink. Then a poor, broken-down
wretch shivered past in rags and misery, and
the elephant said that the man was poor
because he had wasted all his money buying
the drink which the rich man sold. Ladies
in velvet and sealskins and furs stopped to
look in at the window, and sighed because they
JUMBO AND 1,
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY. 171
had no children to buy toys for; and poor
women, thin and cold, sighed because they
had so many children that they could not afford
to buy for them even the penny toys which
we india-rubber ones looked down upon so
much. Young men lounged past, young men
on the threshold of life, thinking of how they
could spend money; and old men hobbled
past, old men on the verge of the grave,
scheming how to make more money before
they died.
“It's a strange, topsy-turvy world
!†said
the elephant one day, wisely wagging his trunk.
For he was a wise animal, although he was
made of india-rubber and his back and legs
showed the seams of the mould in which he
had been run.
Christmas was close at hand, and the pave-
ment outside our window was blocked every
day and nearly all day long by groups of ladies
and children, who stopped to look at the toys.
The elephant and I felt ourselves to be quite
public characters, for we were a part of the
attraction, and we used to chuckle when some
crusty old curmudgeon, busy money-grubbing,
had to walk out in the roadway to get past,
172 A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
erumbling, “ Bother the women and children !
What a nuisance Christmas is!â€
The day before Christmas Day a lady
with two little girls and a little boy stopped in
front of the window, and the children began
eagerly to scan the contents of the shop-front.
Presently one of the little girls caught sight of
our group on the shelf, and I heard her say,—
“Oh! Muddie! there's a lovely little india-
rubber man up there!†And the boy pulled
his mother’s cloak and pointed excitedly at
Jumbo: “Look, there's a jolly elephant!â€
Then all three children laid hold of the lady,
and, whether by magnetism or not, got her
inside the shop.
Presently a hand came up, and the elephant |
and I were lifted down and put on the counter
in front of the same little party. They pinched
me to make me whistle, and they squeezed
Jumbo’s wind out, and laughed to hear him
draw it back again.
“Yes, we'll buy little Pierrot,†said the
mother, “but I don’t think we need the
elephant too.†Poor Jumbo sighed, and I
looked pleadingly at the children and whispered,
‘Do buy him too!â€
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY. 173
Neither the shop-girl nor the mother knew
that I spoke, but the children did, for they
“UGH! HE WAS UGLY!â€
understood toy language, and the youngest of
the little girls begged hard for Jumbo.
‘*Oh, muddie, do buy the elephum. The
174 A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
india-wubber man’s his fwend, and he’ll bweak
his heart.â€
And the end of it was that Jumbo and I
were packed up in a parcel together with a
big Noah’s Ark and a couple of dolls. The
dolls were shut up in boxes, for they had very
few clothes on, and did not want to be seen
until they had their new dresses. Noah’s
Ark, too, was wrapped up in brown paper,
but I could hear the animals inside snarling
and growling. When we were unpacked and
taken out I found myself in a great room,
which I discovered was the nursery. There
were brightly-coloured pictures on the walls,
and on the floor and shelves were all sorts
of toys, wooden bricks, humming-tops, clock-
work mice, big frogs, tin soldiers, and, in
fact, almost every kind of thing that comes
from Toyland. And how the children enjoyed
themselves! They arranged all the animals,
and birds, and insects from the Ark, two and
two along the floor; Noah was put at the
head of the column, and Shem, Ham, and
Japheth each had his company. Shem com-
manded the big animals, Ham the little
animals, and Japheth the birds, and the wives
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY. 175
came last of all. Then a little army of tin
Highlanders and leaden Life Guards attacked
the procession; the clockwork mice were
wound up, and ran amuck round and round,
knocking down Noah and the animals first
and then whizzing through the soldiers’ ranks.
Cannons were brought into action, and Shem,
together with the camels and a horse, were
knocked over by a hail of pea-shots. And,
v2
Two aw Two. â€
finally, I had to advance on the back of
Jumbo and charge the enemy. We did it so
vigorously that we knocked off a lion’s tail
and broke a tiger’s leg, and after that Noah
retreated with all his menagerie into the Ark,
and they were shut up.
Nearly every day the children came and
played with us. They called me Pierrot, but
the eldest girl, who was learning French, told
her little brother and sister that I was really
176 A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
Lenfant prodigue, which, she told them, meant
“the prodigious infant.â€
Jumbo and I were very happy, for we were
generally together, but the Noah’s Ark lot did
not seem to like us. I think they resented our
knocking off their legs and horns and tails,
but we could not help it—they were so brittle.
But there was one creature in the room who,
I felt sure, hated me. It was a Bogie man
Jack-in-the-Box! Ugh! he was ugly! Of
course he could not help that, but he looked
evil and malicious, and that sort of expression
only comes by practice. His face was black,
his hair and eyebrows were woolly white,
his eyes were big and staring, and his grin
was the nastiest and the wickedest I had ever
seen. He gave asnarly kind of scream every
time he popped out of his box, and the same
when the lid squeezed him down again. He
took a strong dislike to me from the first, and
whenever he was let loose where he could see
me he always glared at me with the evilest
expression imaginable.
And he could talk, too, for he was a wind
toy, and all wind toys can talk more or less.
He did not say much, for the only chances
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY. 177
he got were when he bobbed out or was pushed
back. But he always said something nasty
each way. ;
One afternoon, when he was just disappear-
ing under pressure, he looked at me more
viciously than ever, and squeaked out, “‘ Wait
till Twelfth Night!†I asked my friend
Jumbo, who was close by, what the Bogie
meant. ‘‘ Well,†said the elephant, ‘I’m
afraid he means mischief, for at twelve o’clock
on Twelfth Night all the toys in Christendom
wake up, and for an hour they can do as they
like without restraint.†I felt uneasy, for |
thought that the animals and the Bogie might
perhaps seize the opportunity to attack me.
But Jumbo did his best to comfort me, and he
promised faithfully that he would stand by me
if it came to the worst.
Well! Twelfth Night soon arrived. The
children left off their play at four o'clock, and
went away, and we were all by ourselves in the
nursery. The Jack-in-the-Box was fastened
down, the Ark was packed and the roof closed,
the clockwork mice had run down, the soldiers
were standing at ease or lying down, the
Japanese spiders and frogs and insects were all
12
178 A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
shut up in their boxes, and two funny little
Japanese dolls fell asleep where they stood.
Jumbo and I kept close together in a corner,
with Noah’s Ark on one side and the Bogie’s
box on the other. It grew rapidly dark, and
we all slept. But I was awakened by hearing
a clock strike eleven. Only one hour more,
and all the toys would be loose! Presently I
heard confused noises all round me. From in-
side the Ark came mutterings and grumblings.
They all seemed to be mixed up together. A
little squeaky voice—I think it was a guinea-
pig’s—appealed to Noah, “ Please, sir, will you
speak to the elephant, he’s standing on me!â€
A rabbit screamed out that a stag had stuck
one of his horns into its back, and there were
lots of complaints about the foxes’ tails. Poor
Noah! I quite pitied him !
“Oh, dear me!†I heard him say, ‘I wish
I had never started this menagerie! the animals
worry my life out, and as for Shem, Ham, and
Japheth, all they do is to quarrel with their
wives, and they leave me to do all the
work!†And then he remonstrated with the
menagerie.
“Do keep quiet down there! It isn’t my
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY. 179
fault if you don’t fit in properly. I didn’t pack
you ; it’s the children’s fault!â€
Then all the discontented creatures bullied
Noah about the ventilation.
“T can’t help the ventilation!†replied Noah,
crossly, ‘I wasn’t the architect; you must
make the best of it until twelve o’clock, and
then you can go out and do what you like for
an hour.â€
This satisfied them, for they all screamed
out “ Pierrot!†and then were silent. On the
other side of me I could hear the Bogie moving
restlessly in his box, and talking to himself.
He kept on saying in a mocking voice, ‘ Poor
Pierrot!†and this made me more anxious than
ever. There were clicking sounds in the boxes
of the clockwork mice, and I guessed that
they were winding themselves up. And from
within the Japanese boxes I heard distinctly
the spiders and hornets and beetles and frogs
crawling and buzzing about. Jumbo heard all
that was going on, and he told me not to be
afraid,
“If they attack you,†he said, ‘jump upon
my back at once; sit tight, and it will take
them all they know to catch us.â€
180 A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
So we waited and watched. The moon was
shining into the room so brightly that we could
see everything plainly, but Jumbo never once
closed his little black beady eyes, and mine
were wide open all the time.
As the minutes passed away the room grew
very still, and in the silence I could hear the
old grandfather’s clock on the landing outside
solemnly counting to itself, ‘“ Tick-tock, tick-
tock.â€
At last there was a little whirl, and then the
strokes began to ring out. I counted them up
to twelve, and then there was a sudden crash
in the room. All around me everything woke
up. Up flew the cover of the Bogie’s box, and
out he came with a yell and a glare of triumph
in his wicked eyes. The roof of the Ark
opened with a bang, and out poured the
animals and birds, tumbling head over heels
in a heap. In vain Noah tried to check the
wild rush. ‘Two and two!†he shouted.
‘Where's your discipline ? What's the use of
all your drill?†But they paid no attention
to him, except the birds, which got up on to
the ridge of the Ark roof, and ranged them-
selves in pairs—yellow, pink, brown, black, and
2 cae =
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY. 183
speckled. The soldiers all fell in, and stood
at attention waiting for the word of command.
No sooner were the animals on their legs
than they all made a dash at the corner where
Jumbo and I were standing.
“They're after you,†said. Jumbo; “jump
pee
In a moment I was mounted and we were
off, just in time to escape being hemmed in the
corner by the ferocious pack. Away we went
as fast as Jumbo could lay his legs to the
ground, and after us came the menagerie in full
cry, roaring, trumpeting, growling, snarling,
squeaking, and howling. The clockwork mice
joined the chase, whirring along like little
steam-engines ; the big yellow and green frogs
jumped like kangaroos; and the loathsome
Japanese spiders scurried along on their eight
wire legs.
But the Bogie Man was the most fearsome
thing cf all as he came bounding along in the
rear like a demon huntsman, yelling ‘‘ Tally ho!
Pierrot!†The two Japanese dolls tried to
stop the hunt, but a big hornet out of the insect-
box flew in the face of one, and the other was
attacked by a vicious little monkey, and they
184 A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
were left behind, screaming ‘ Murder!â€
Noah, who was dressed in a round black hat
and a long red ulster with white buttons, and
carried a yellow stick, tried to head and whip off
the pack, but it was no use. So he mounted
a railway-engine and rattled along too. Round
and round the room in the bright moonlight we
raced: flying over hurdles, knocking over the
green crinkle trees which belonged to the farm-
yard, scattering the cows and sheep, jumping
over the walls of wooden bricks, upsetting the
houses, smashing up the dolls’ tea-things, and
with the pack of wild creatures always close at
our heels. There was a picture in the room of
Mazeppa pursued by wolves, and I used to pity
him ; but now I envied his position. He was
tied on to his steed, and I was zo¢ tied to mine.
Every time Jumbo jumped I screamed, and
between us all I wonder the noise did not
awaken every one in the house. I was nearly
off several times, but I clung tightly to the
elephant, for I knew what my fate would be
if I fell. At last what I had been dreading
happened. Jumbo was clearing a heap of
bricks, I lost my balance, and the next moment
I was lying on the floor with the ravenous
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.†185
animals close on me. There they were within
a few feet, rushing on with eyes full of fury.
I can see them now when I shut my eyes and
think, and I can even remember some of the
foremost animals. There were drab elephants
SSS
SS
SSS
SS
SSS
——
SS
‘* SCREAMING ‘MURDER !'â€
and camels, a brown stag with black ink spots,
a couple of yellow tigers striped with black, a
red lion, some yellow wolves and foxes, a pink
pig, and a pair of mauve animals which I] do
not know the names of.
Jumbo had been going so fast that he could
186 A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
not stop at once to help me, but life is dear
even to an india-rubber man, and I sprang up
and looked around for a place of safety.
In one corner of the room there was a castle
which the children had built that afternoon with
their toy bricks, with an open stairway leading
up to the ramparts. I snatched up atoy sword
which was lying on the floor, and, running up
the steps to the top, prepared to defend myself.
The foremost of my pursuers tried to follow,
but I beat them back; the spiders tried to
crawl up the walls of my fortress, but I flung
loose bricks down and knocked them off.
Down below, the Bogie Man jumped up and
down ina state of frantic excitement, urging my
foes on to the assault. It was a desperate
fight, but they were too many for me, and I
was beginning to despair, when into the midst
of the affray rushed Jumbo with his trunk
upraised and trumpeting shrilly. Right and
left he knocked the animals over in his charges,
and to complete the rout of the enemy the
soldiers at last marched up and attacked them
in the rear.
It was a stirring sight to see this battle rag-
ing in the moonlight. Backward and forward
SY
A NIGHT IN A NURSERY. A 187
through the crowd of brightly coloured animals
the great, white, ghostly-looking Jumbo dashed,
and the din was terrific. The cavalry were
fiercely engaged with the clockwork mice, and
the infantry were struggling hand to hand with
the spiders. But even in the moment of
victory I was nearly lost, for a tiger crawled
stealthily up the steps, and sprang at me with
a roar.
At that instant the clock struck—One!
Down fell the tiger headlong in the middle of
his spring ; away rushed the animals back to
the Ark and bundled in, with Noah behind
them hurrying them with his long yellow stick.
Then Noah and his family went in, and pulled
the roof to. And the spiders and mice, and
frogs and insects, all scurried away to their
boxes ; the soldiers reformed their ranks, and
marched back to their camp under the table ;
and, as for the Bogie Man, the lid of his box
came down and squeezed him in, and he dis-
appeared with a last cry of baffled rage.
The room was still again, and Jumbo and
I soon fell asleep, tired but thankful. I don't
think that Noah’s Ark will trouble us next
Twelfth Night, and I am sure the Bogie will
188 A NIGHT IN A NURSERY.
not. For one by one the animals are dis-
appearing ; there are few left with more than
three legs, and some have none at all. Yester-
day there was a thaw, and the children said
that the little stream at the bottom of the
garden was quite full; so they took out Shem,
Ham, and Japheth and their wives, blue ladies
with black aprons, and carried them off for. a
trip in a toy ship with paper sails.
They never brought them back, and I heard
them telling the nurse about a dreadful ship-
wreck. But Noah and his wife did not grieve
much. As for the Bogie, his springs were
broken by his violent exertions, and when his
box was opened the next morning he was dead
and limp, and he never even squeaked again.
Jumbo and I mean to live and die together,
and I shall never forget that awful night in
the nursery.
LIVE LITTLE PIXIES.
189
FIVE LITTLE PIXIES.
IVE little Pixies set out one
day,
Five little Pixies blythe and
gay:
Five little Pixies full of fun,
Mischievous mannikins every
one !
There was Mike and Spike and Grip and
Snip,
The fifth his name was little Nip;
Five of the rowdiest little creatures,
Like wicked old men in forms and features.
192 FIVE LITTLE PIXIES.
They shrieked and screamed with their elfin
squeals,
And tumbl’d about head over heels,
For their heads were full as full could be
Of every kind of devilry.
They found a hole in a mossy bank—
“ Fere’s a chance for a jolly prank!
A Cogger’s hole!†cried one little gnome,
“Let's try and find if the Cogger’s at home!â€
The five little imps with caution stole
On tiptoe to the Cogger’s hole.
FIVE LITTLE PIXIES. 193
They pushed in a stick with scream and
shout,
And poked and stirred and rummaged about.
Is the Cogger in? or is he out?
Not very long were they left in doubt ;
With angry roar that turned them pale
Out came a Bee with a pin in her tail!
“Tt's a Drumbledrone!†they cried in fright,
And off they went in headlong flight.
They yelled “Blue Murder! and Fire and
Thieves!â€
And tried to hide away under the leaves.
But the Drumbledrone was mad with rage—
He'd no respect for size or age—
He stung them in their tender places,
And punish’d their calves and hands and
faces.
13
194 FIVE LITTLE PIXIES.
And after that he set to preaching ;
This was the subject of his teaching :
‘If you Pixies don’t your manners mend
You all will come to a terrible end.â€
Then the Drumbledrone flew off again
And left the imps in grief and pain;
They moaned and cried and twisted and
turned,
And rubb’d themselves hard where the bee-
stings burned.
They picked some dock leaves out of a ditch,
Oh! how their wounds did smart and itch!
They squeezed the juice, with queer grimaces,
On arms and noses, legs and faces.
But soon the smart of the stings grew less,
Forgotten was their late distress ;
FIVE LITTLE PIXIES. 195
They danced along with redoubled glee,
Five little Mannikins out on the spree!
They howked the Birds and annoyed the
Moles,
And shouted down the Rabbits’ holes ;
They frightened the Spiders into fits,
And tattered their cobwebs all to bits.
They found a little Rabbit asleep,
And Nip began with care to creep
On a bramble stem that grew, alack!
Just over the poor little Bunny’s back.
196 FIVE LITTLE PIXIES.
Then with a scream did the Pixie jump
Down on the little sleeper, plump!
But ere he could on the ground alight
The Rabbit awoke in a terrible fright !
The Rabbit bolted and bucked and jumped,
And little Nip was quickly plumped
Head over heels with terrible force
In the midst of a clump of prickly gorse.
His skin was scratched, his clothes were
torn,
He wished he never had been born;
FIVE LITTLE. PIXIES. 197
But the other four enjoyed the fun,
As they pulled out the prickles one by one.
The next little games that came to hand,
For this relentless Brownie band,
Were to catch a Field-mouse by his tail
And turn topsy-turvy a sleeping Snail.
198 FIVE LITTLE PIXIES.
Py ORS
ui)
Next they found lying all in a heap
Seven Cockchafers fast asleep ;
‘Hurrah for a spree!†the Pixies cried,
“We'll make them take us out for a ride.â€
ws
From a spider’s web they stole some threads,
And tied them to the sleepy heads,
They found a stick and harnessed them
tight,
And the Chafers woke in a dreadful fright.
FIVE LITTLE PIXIES. 199
The Pixies, a-straddle across the log,
The Chafers’ backs began to flog ;
Six straining legs each Chafer plied,
As they dragged the Brownies out for a
ride.
Five little Pixies so blythe and gay,
Revelling all the summer’s day ;
Seven great Chafers patient and slow,
Like elephants in a wild-beast show.
But all too short their impish glee!
Too soon, alas! their weird they dree,
For the Chafers crept with weary groan
To the very brink of a sloping stone.
Then with a buzz of their whirring wings,
Away flew all the creeping things ;
200 FIVE LITTLE PIXIES.
The traces broke, and with a scream and
yell,
Like shooting stars the mannikins fell!
, Wo . Though a bed of nettles
ky, broke their fall,
The imps at first could
scarcely crawl ;
Said they, as they rubbed
their smarting stings,
“We'd forgotten quite
that Chafers have
wings.â€
The Pixies next, in
soberer mood,
Began to hunt about for
food.
FIVE LITTLE PIXIES. 201
“To steal some birds’ eggs let us try!â€
So they hunted low and they hunted high.
At last they found in a hollow tree
A Blue-tit’s nest, and these rovers free
Stole five of the pinky spotted eggs,
And chuckling with glee they took to their
legs.
But a vengeance dire was close at hand,
For the Tom-tits routed out the band,
And, mad with rage, they headlong flew
With open bills at the pirate crew.
Helter and skelter the Pixies fled,
But fate their flying footsteps led
202 FIVE LITTLE PIXIES.
Straight to the edge of a river bank,
And over they plunged with a scream and
sank !
Five little splashes, one little scream,
Five little bubbles on the stream,
Five little tombstones all in a row,
It’s true, for a dicky-bird told me so!
THE MISCHIEVOUS PUFFINS.
THE MISCHIEVOUS: PUFFINS.
O you know what a puffin is?
Well, the puffin is a funny little
black and white bird, about a
foot in length, with a big
coloured beak, which makes the
creature look as if it had put its
head into a tea-cosy. On the
rocky cliffs of some parts of our sea-coast you
may see rows of puffins, sitting and bowing and
nodding to each other in a comical way. They
sit very upright, as diving-birds generally do
when they are ashore, and they look like a lot
of stout old gentlemen in black coats and white
waistcoats chatting together. If you look at the
206 THE MISCHIEVOUS PUFFINS.
first picture you will see how easy it is to turn
a puffin into an old gentleman. The puffins
make their nests in the crevices of the rocks,
and very often they use a rabbit’s burrow for
a home, turning out the poor bunnies.
Well, the puffins I am going to tell you
about were two mischievous little creatures
Nebedy at von Nett go oy
who started out together one fine morning
along the cliffs just to pass away the time for
an hour or two. They had not gone far when
they spied a rabbit-hole, above which was a
large board with the words, “ Mr. Rabbit back
in five minutes,†written on it. Now these
puffins, although they were young, knew
enough of the world to be sure that when any
THE MISCHIEVOUS PUFFINS. 207
one puts up a notice outside his door, “ Back
in five minutes,†it really means that he has
gone out for a long time and does not know
when he will be back. So they thought
they would explore the burrow and if
the rabbit chanced to come back while they
were inside so much the better. It would give
4 Ny S
SARK \)
=m
whats that!
him a fright. So in they went. But it
happened that the rabbit had been out for a
long scamper over the cliffs, and he came
loping up just as the puffins disappeared down
the hole. He suspected nothing, and after
looking round to be sure that no one saw him
he popped into his burrow, singing softly to
himself ‘‘ Home, sweet home.†A second later
SE
Sy Pat
me. i Murder.
208 THE MISCHIEVOUS PUFFINS.
he came out with a bounce, his eyes starting
out of his head with fright and all his fur
standing on end. ‘“ Murder!†he screamed,
“what's that?†and, turning tail, he rushed
away as if one were shooting at him. And
presently the two mischievous puffins appeared
grinning with delight. ‘What a fright that
old chap was in!†said one to the other.
But the rabbit never got over the fright.
He went mad, stuck straws in the fur of his
head, and the next morning he danced over the
edge of the cliff, and fell down, down,—past
the rows of puffins and guillemots, past the old
cormorant sitting on a jagged point of rock,
past the cloud of screaming gulls which were
swirling round and round—splash into the sea
far below. And his body went so far down
that a big old lobster, who lived in a cranny of
the rock, got hold of it and made a hearty meal
of the remains of poor bunny.
The puffins got off that time, but if they could
have foreseen what would happen one day they
would never have helped to feed that lobster.
THE END.
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