The Rosery Folk Part 32

"For the better parts of my profession." Lady Martlett's face became fixed, and she listened to him intently.

"Yes; I confess I do love my profession, and I never see you in your perfection of womanly beauty, without feeling an intense desire to dissect you."

Lady Martlett started up from the seat, where, in a studied att.i.tude, she had well displayed the graceful undulations of her figure, and stood before Jack Scales, proud, haughty, and indignant. Her eyes flashed; there was an ardent colour in her cheeks, which then seemed to flood back to her heart, leaving her white with anger.

"How dare you!" she began, in the mortification and pa.s.sion that came upon her; and then, thoroughly mastered, and unable to control herself longer, she burst into a wild hysterical fit of laughter and hurried out of the room.

Jack Scales rose and stood watching the door as it swung to, and there was a look of tenderness and regret in his countenance as he muttered: "Too bad--too bad! Brutal and insulting! And to a woman--a lady of her position and refinement! I'll go and beg her pardon--ask her to forgive me--make confession of why I spoke so.--No. Put my head beneath her heel, to be crushed by her contempt! It wouldn't do. She goaded me to it. She wants to triumph over me. I could read her looks. If she cared for me, and those looks were real, I'd go down upon my knees humbly and tell her my sorrow; and then--then--then--What should I do then?

"Hah!" he cried, after a pause, "what would you do then, Jack Scales!

Go away, and never set eyes upon her again, for it would not do. It is impossible, and I am a fool." He stood with his brows knit for a few minutes, and then said, in quite a different mood: "And now I am a man of the world again. Yes; you are about the most handsome woman I ever saw; but a woman is but a woman to a doctor, be she t.i.tled or only a farmer's la.s.s. Blue blood is only a fiction after all; for if I blooded my lady there, pretty f.a.n.n.y Cressy, and one of Brother William Cressy's pigs into separate test tubes, and placed them in a rack; and if, furthermore, I left them for a few minutes, and some busybody took them up and changed their places, I might, when I returned, fiddle about for long enough with the various corpuscles, but I could not tell which was which.--Lady Martlett, I am your very obedient servant, but I am not going to be your rejected slave."

Volume 2, Chapter VII.

THE DOCTOR DISCOURSES.

"My back's a sight better, sir, wi' that stuff you said I was to get, and I thank you kindly for it," said John Monnick, as the doctor seated himself one day close by where the old man was busy weeding a bed in the flower-garden--a special task that he would not entrust to any one else.

"I'm glad of it, Monnick--very glad."

"But master don't seem no better, sir, if you'll excuse me for saying so."

"Yes, Monnick, I'll excuse you," said the doctor sadly. "As you say, he is very little better if any. I'm afraid that pond emptying began the work the accident finished."

"It frets me, sir, it do--it do indeed. For only to think of it: him so stout and straight and hearty one day, and as wan and thin and bad the next as an old basket. Ah! it's a strange life this here."

"True Monnick, true," said the doctor.

"I felt a bit cut up when his father died, sir, but thank the Lord he aren't here now to see the boy as he 'most wors.h.i.+pped pulled down as he be. Why, I were down in Sucksix, sir, in the marshes, for two years, 'twix' Hastings and Rye, and I had the ager awful bad, but it never pulled me down like this. Do try your best with Sir James, do, pray."

"I will, Monnick, I will," said the doctor.

Monnick went on with his weeding, and the doctor sat watching in a low-spirited way the motions of a beautiful little robin that kept popping down and seizing some worm which, alarmed by the disturbance of the ground, was trying to escape.

"What humbug popular favouritism is," he exclaimed suddenly.

"Beg pardon, sir," said Monnick, glad of an excuse to straighten his back.

"I say what humbug there is in the world," said the doctor. "Look at that robin, Monnick."

"Yes, sir; he be a pretty one too. There's lots on 'em here, and welcome as rain."

"Yes," said the doctor, "but what humbug it is."

Monnick stared, and the robin hopped on the top of a garden stick and chirruped a few notes.

"Just imagine," said the doctor, who was in a didactic mood; "try and imagine a stout, well-built man, six feet high, a fine, handsome brawny savage, seizing a boa constrictor in his teeth, shaking the, say, eighteen feet of writhing bone and muscle till it had grown weak and limp, and, by a complete reverse of all rule, swallowing the lengthy monster without an effort. The idea partakes of the nature of the serpent, and is monstrous; but all the same, that little petted and be-praised impostor will hop up to a great earthworm three times his length, give it a few digs with his sharp beak, and then--as the Americans would say--get outside it apparently without effort or ruffling a feather, after which he will hop away, flit to a twig, and indulge in a short, sharp song of triumph over his deed. It is his nature to, no doubt, and so are a good many more of his acts; but in these days, when it has grown to be the custom to run tilt at no end of our cherished notions; when we are taught that Alfred did not burn the cakes; that Caractacus never made that pathetic speech about the wealth of Rome: it is only fair to strip the hypocritical feather cloak of hypocrisy off that flagrant little impostor, the robin."

"The robin and the wren be G.o.d's c.o.c.k and hen," said John Monnick solemnly, pairing according to old custom two birds of different kinds.

"Yes," said the doctor, "and terrible are the penalties supposed to attach to the man or boy who takes the nest, steals the egg, or destroys old or young of their sacred progeny. As a matter of course, no one ever did take egg, nest, or destroy the young of this couple, inasmuch as they are two distinct birds."

"Yes, sir, two of 'em," said John Monnick solemnly. "The robin and the wren be G.o.d's c.o.c.k and hen, and n.o.body never takes their eggs but jays and magpies and such like, robins is always the friends of man."

"Friend of man, eh?" said the doctor. "Well, go where you will, there is the pretty bird to be seen, with his orange-scarlet breast, olive-green back, and large, bright, intelligent eyes. Winter or summer, by the homestead, at the window-pane, amongst the shrubs of the garden, or in the wood, there is the robin ready to perch near you and watch your every act, while from time to time he favours you with his tuneful lay. All pure affection for man, of course--so the un.o.bservant have it, and so poets sing; when the fact of the matter is that the familiarity of the bird comes from what Mr Roger Riderhood termed 'cheek,' for, the sparrow not excepted, there is no bird in which the sense of fear seems so small; while the motive power which brings the pretty little fellow so constantly in man's society is that love which is known as cupboard. Probably the robin first learned from Adam that when man begins to garden he turns up worms; and, as these ringed creepers are this bird's daily bread, he has attached himself to man ever since, and will come and pick the worms from his very feet, whether it be in a garden or during a botanical ramble in the depths of some wood."

"Yes, sir," said John Monnick, "they follows mankind everywhere. I've had 'em with me wherever I go."

"For worms, Monnick, and in winter they will come for crumbs to the window sill, or pick pieces of meat and gristle from the bones inside the dog's kennel; while in autumn time, when the flies grow sluggish and little spiders fat, where is there a better hunting-ground than the inside of a house where there is an open window, or, best of all, a church? What other bird, it may be asked, would take delight in making its way into a country church to flit about as the robin will? A sparrow would awaken at once to its sacrilegious behaviour, and beat the window-pane to escape; a robin never. On the contrary, he seems to take delight in making the little boys laugh, in impishly attracting the attention of people from the 'secondly' and 'thirdly' of the sermon."

"Yes, sir, I've seed 'em pick the dog's bones often, and I _have_ seen 'em in a church."

"Seen them, Monnick? Have seen them? Why, but the other day, in an old church with a regular three-decker pulpit, I saw a robin perch upon the cus.h.i.+on just over the parson's head as he read the lessons, and mockingly begin to preach in song, indulging afterwards in a joyous flit round the church, out at the open door, and back again, to make a sharp snap with its bill at the flies. If, you might say, the robin bore love to man he would not play tricks in church."

"I don't quite see what you're a trying to sow on me, sir, but, you being a doctor, I suppose it's all right," said Monnick.

"John Monnick," said the doctor bitterly, "I am trying to give you a lesson on humbugs. Robins do not pair out of their station--out of their kind. Men do when they are wed, but the wisest do not. Robins pair with robins, not with wrens."

"Well, sir, I never seed 'em," said Monnick, "but that's what they say-- the robin and the wren be G.o.d's c.o.c.k and hen."

"Stuff! Robins pair with robins. Should I, being a sparrow, pair with a swallow that flies high above me--three mullets on a field azure-- flying across the blue sky."

"Well, no, sir," said Monnick thoughtfully; "I suppose not."

"It would be humbug, John Monnick, humbug; and the robin is a humbug, John. As to his behaviour to his kind, it seems grievous to have to lift the veil that covers so much evil; but it must be done. What do you say to your belauded robin being one of the most sanguinary little monsters under the sun? Not merely is he a murderer of his kind, but he will commit parricide, matricide, or fratricide without the smallest provocation. Put half-a-dozen robins in an aviary, and go the next morning to see the result. I don't say that, as in the case of the celebrated Kilkenny cats, there will be nothing left but one tail; but I guarantee that five of the robins will be dead, and the survivor in anything but the best of plumage, for a gamec.o.c.k is not more pugnacious than our little friend."

"That be true enough, sir," said John, rubbing his back softly, "I've seen 'em. But you must ha' taken a mort o' notice of 'em, sir. I didn't know you ever see such things."

"You thought I dealt only in physic and lotions, John, eh? But I have noticed robins and a few other things. But about c.o.c.k Robin. It might be thought that this fighting propensity would only exist at pairing time, and that it was a question of fighting for the smiles of some fair Robinetta; but nothing of the kind: a robin will not submit to the presence of another in or on its beat, and will slay the intruder without mercy, or be slain in the attempt. It might almost be thought that the ruddy stain upon its breast-feathers was the proof-mark of some late victory, where the feathers had been imbrued in the victim's blood; but I will not venture upon the imagery lest it should jar. It is no uncommon thing to see a couple of robins in a walk, flitting round each other with wings drooping and tails erect: they will bend and bow, and utter short, defiant notes, retreat, as if to take up more strategic positions, and, after an inordinate amount of fencing, dash in and fight till there seems to be a sort of feathery firework going off amongst the bushes; and so intent are they on their battle, so careless of man's approach, that they may at times be picked up panting, exhausted, bleeding, and dying, holding tightly on to one another by their slender bills."

"Yes, sir, and I've picked 'em up dead more'n once."

"Ah! yes! _Pace_, good Doctor Watts, birds do not in their little nests agree, nor yet out of them. The old country idea is that in the autumn the young robins kill off the old: undoubtedly the strong do slay the weak. It can be often seen, and were it not so, we should have robins in plenty, instead of coming upon the solitary little fellows here and there, popping out silently like spies upon our every act. Come late autumn and wintry weather, the small birds can be seen in companies, sparrows and finches mixing up in friendly concourse; but the robin never seems to flock, but always to be comparatively scarce. He never joins their companies, though he comes in their midst to the window for wintry alms of crumbs, but when he does, as Artemus Ward would say, there is 'a fite.' He attacks the stranger birds all round, and audaciously takes the best pieces for himself, robins do not remain scarce from not being prolific, for you may find the nest a couple have built in an ivy tod, an old watering-pot, or in a corner of the toolshed, with five or six reddish blotchy eggs in it. They have two or three broods every season, while their brown speckled young ones, wanting in the olive and red of their ciders, are a cry familiar objects, hopping sedately about in the sunny summer-time."

"That be all true as gorspel, sir," said Monnick. "Why, bless you, they've built in my toolshed, in watering-pots, and even in my shred-bag."

"Yes, Monnick, and now look here. I have shown what a murderer our small impostor is, and how, under his pleasant outward appearance, he has a nature that will stick at nothing for the gratification of self, even, as I must now show, at such a despicable act as theft. There are those who maintain that the robin's mission is all for good, and that he is merely a destroyer of noxious insects, grubs, and worms; that he relieves the garden of myriads of blights, and eating, boring, and canker-producing pests. Granted: so he does, though it is very unpleasant for the unfortunate little insect that happens to be dubbed a pest to find itself within reach of that vicious bill and cavernous throat. But why cannot our young friend--for, in spite of his wickedness, we shall always call him friend for the pleasure he affords our eyes and ears, just as we wink at the private life of a great artist who gratifies the senses in his turn--but I repeat why cannot our young friend be content to 'cry havock' amongst the insect pests, and to peek from the dog's basin, the pig's trough, and the chickens' food, and not, sit on some bare spray, or under the shadows of a th.o.r.n.y bush, and watch with those great earnest eyes of his till the ventilators of the gla.s.s-houses are open, and then flit--flutter--dash headlong in for a feast of grapes?"

"They do, sir, they're as bad as the wopses. Some gardeners say as robins never touch fruit, sir, but they do."

"Yes, John, you are right; they do, and most unmercifully. They pick out, as if by instinct, the ripest and best bunches of the great black Hambro's, hang on to the stalks, and wherever these rich pearly black grapes have been well thinned and petted that they may grow to an abnormal size, dig dig go the wicked little beaks. If they would be content with a grape or two, and begin and finish them, or even four or five or six, it would not matter; but your robin is a sybarite in his way: he treats a grape-house as visitors with tasting orders used to treat the cellars of the docks. They did not want the wine, but they would fee the cooper, who would broach a cask here and another cask there, and all of the best, till the vinous sawdust was soaked with the waste, and the fumes produced a strange intoxicating effect. Very strange that, how intoxicating those fumes would be. Unfortunately, this juice of the grape is not fermented, and the robin goes on upon his destructive quest. Still there is one redeeming feature: he will brook no companion. One visitor at a time; two means battle royal, and flying feathers."

John Monnick scratched one red ear, for the doctor was taking him out of his depth, and he looked more puzzled still as the speaker went on.

"To sum up, then, the robin is a compound of all that is audacious, gluttonous, vicious, cruel, and despicable; but he can sing, and his pleasant little note, mournful though it be, as it acts as harbinger of falling leaves, is as much a.s.sociated with home and our native land as the bonny English rose, and that resource from chills and fogs, our own fireside. Never mind the superst.i.tious penalties! Who is there among us who would kill a robin, or would take its nest? From earliest childhood till the days when Time's h.o.a.r frost appears upon the hair, one greets the ruddy-breasted little rascal with a smile, and feeds him when his feathered friends and foes fall fast before the winter's scythe. So loved is he, that in far-off foreign lands the nearest likeness to him is called a robin still. We can forgive him, and wink at all his sins, as he flits attendance where'er we go in country lane, and gladly greet him even in some suburban square; and even as I speak, I am fain to say--as his pretty little figure there greets my eye--what a nuisance it is to have to speak the truth! There, John Monnick, what do you think of that?"

"It's very good, sir, all as I could understand of it, but there's some as wants hearing again and diegestin' like, to get it all well into a man, as you may say. Going sir?"