Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men Part 1

Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men.

by Juliana Horatia Gatty Ewing.

PREFACE TO FIRST EDITION.

These tales have appeared, during some years past, in _Aunt Judy's Magazine for Young People_.

"Father Hedgehog and his Neighbours," and "Toots and Boots," were both suggested by Fedor Flinzer's clever pictures; but "Toots" was also "a real person." In his latter days he was an honorary member of the Royal Engineers' Mess at Aldershot, and, on occasion, dined at table.

"The Hens of Hencastle" is not mine. It is a free translation from the German of Victor Bluthgen, by Major Yeatman-Biggs, R.A., to whom I am indebted for permission to include it in my volume, as a necessary prelude to "Flaps." The story took my fancy greatly, but the ending seemed to me imperfect and unsatisfactory, especially in reference to so charming a character as the old watch dog, and I wrote "Flaps" as a sequel.

The frontispiece was designed specially for this volume, by Mr. Charles Whymper, and the _Fratello della Misericordia_ (from a photograph kindly sent me by a friend) is by the same artist.

J.H.E.

PREFACE TO NEW EDITION.

The foregoing Preface was written by Mrs. Ewing for the first edition of _Brothers of Pity, and Other Tales_. The book contains five stories, ill.u.s.trated by the pictures of which my sister speaks; and it is still sold by the S.P.C.K. "Toots and Boots" was so minutely adapted to Flinzer's pictures, that the tale suffers in being parted from them.

Still, it is to be hoped that readers of the un-ill.u.s.trated version will not have as much difficulty as Toots in solving the mystery of the Mouse's escape! I have added four more tales of "Beasts and Men" to the present edition, as they have not been included in any previous collections of my sister's stories. "A Week Spent in a Gla.s.s Pond"

appeared first in _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, October 1876, and was afterwards published separately with coloured ill.u.s.trations. The habits of the water beasts are described with the strictest fidelity to nature, even the delicate differences in character between the Great and the Big Black water beetles are most accurately drawn.

"Among the Merrows" has not been republished since it came out in _Aunt Judy's Magazine_, November 1872. At that time the Crystal Palace Aquarium was a novelty, and the Zoological Station at Naples not fully formed--but, though the paper is behind the times in statistics, it is worth retaining for other reasons.

"Tiny's Tricks and Toby's Tricks" as a specimen of versification might perhaps have been included in the volume of _Verses for Children_, but it seemed best to keep it with the "Owl Hoots," as these papers were the last that Mrs. Ewing wrote. The first appeared in _The Child's Pictorial Magazine_ a few days before her death, and the "Hoots" soon afterwards.

The ill.u.s.trations to both were drawn by Mr. Gordon Browne at my sister's special request, and they are now reproduced with grat.i.tude for his labour of love.

HORATIA K. F. EDEN.

October 1895.

BROTHERS OF PITY.

"Who dug his grave?"

"Who made his shroud?"

"I," said the Beetle, "With my thread and needle, I made his shroud."--_Death of c.o.c.k Robin_.

It must be much easier to play at things when there are more of you than when there is only one.

There is only one of me, and Nurse does not care about playing at things. Sometimes I try to persuade her; but if she is in a good temper she says she has got a bone in her leg, and if she isn't she says that when little boys can't amuse themselves it's a sure and certain sign they've got "the worrits," and the sooner they are put to bed with a Gregory's powder "the better for themselves and every one else."

G.o.dfather Gilpin can play delightfully when he has time, and he believes in fancy things, only he is so very busy with his books. But even when he is reading he will let you put him in the game. He doesn't mind pretending to be a fancy person if he hasn't to do anything, and if I do speak to him he always remembers who he is. That is why I like playing in his study better than in the nursery. And Nurse always says "He's safe enough, with the old gentleman," so I'm allowed to go there as much as I like.

G.o.dfather Gilpin lets me play with the books, because I always take care of them. Besides, there is nothing else to play with, except the window-curtains, for the chairs are always full. So I sit on the floor, and sometimes I build with the books (particularly Stonehenge), and sometimes I make people of them, and call them by the names on their backs, and the ones in other languages we call foreigners, and G.o.dfather Gilpin tells me what countries they belong to. And sometimes I lie on my face and read (for I could read when I was four years old), and G.o.dfather Gilpin tells me the hard words. The only rule he makes is, that I must get all the books out of one shelf, so that they are easily put away again. I may have any shelf I like, but I must not mix the shelves up.

I always took care of the books, and never had any accident with any of them till the day I dropped Jeremy Taylor's _Sermons_. It made me very miserable, because I knew that G.o.dfather Gilpin could never trust me so much again.

However, if it had not happened, I should not have known anything about the Brothers of Pity; so, perhaps (as Mrs. James, G.o.dfather Gilpin's house-keeper, says), "All's for the best," and "It's an ill wind that blows n.o.body good."

It happened on a Sunday, I remember, and it was the day after the day on which I had had the shelf in which all the books were alike. They were all foreigners--Italians--and all their names were _Goldoni_, and there were forty-seven of them, and they were all in white and gold. I could not read any of them, but there were lots of pictures, only I did not know what the stories were about. So next day, when G.o.dfather Gilpin gave me leave to play a Sunday game with the books, I thought I would have English ones, and big ones, for a change, for the _Goldonis_ were rather small.

We played at church, and I was the parson, and G.o.dfather Gilpin was the old gentleman who sits in the big pew with the knocker, and goes to sleep (because he wanted to go to sleep), and the books were the congregation. They were all big, but some of them were fat, and some of them were thin, like real people--not like the _Goldonis_, which were all alike.

I was arranging them in their places and looking at their names, when I saw that one of them was called Taylor's _Sermons_, and I thought I would keep that one out and preach a real sermon out of it when I had read prayers. Of course I had to do the responses as well as "Dearly beloved brethren" and those things, and I had to sing the hymns too, for the books could not do anything, and G.o.dfather Gilpin was asleep.

When I had finished the service I stood behind a chair that was full of newspapers, for a pulpit, and I lifted up Taylor's _Sermons_, and rested it against the chair, and began to look to see what I would preach. It was an old book, bound in brown leather, and ornamented with gold, with a picture of a man in a black gown and a round black cap and a white collar in the beginning; and there was a list of all the sermons with their names and the texts. I read it through, to see which sounded the most interesting, and I didn't care much for any of them. However, the last but one was called "A Funeral Sermon, preached at the Obsequies of the Right Honourable the Countess of Carbery;" and I wondered what obsequies were, and who the Countess of Carbery was, and I thought I would preach that sermon and try to find out.

There was a very long text, and it was not a very easy one. It was: "For we must needs die, and are as water spilt on the ground, which cannot be gathered up again: neither doth G.o.d respect any person: yet doth He devise means that His banished be not expelled from Him."

The sermon wasn't any easier than the text, and half the _s_'s were like _f_'s which made it rather hard to preach, and there was Latin mixed up with it, which I had to skip. I had preached two pages when I got into the middle of a long sentence, of which part was this: "Every trifling accident discomposes us; and as the face of waters wafting in a storm so wrinkles itself, that it makes upon its forehead furrows deep and hollow like a grave: so do our great and little cares and trifles first make the wrinkles of old age, and then they dig a grave for us."

I knew the meaning of the words "wrinkles," and "old age." G.o.dfather Gilpin's forehead had unusually deep furrows, and, almost against my will, I turned so quickly to look if his wrinkles were at all like the graves in the churchyard, that Taylor's _Sermons_, in its heavy binding, slipped from the pulpit and fell to the ground.

And G.o.dfather Gilpin woke up, and (quite forgetting that he was really the old gentleman in the pew with the knocker) said, "Dear me, dear me!

is that Jeremy Taylor that you are knocking about like a football? My dear child, I can't lend you my books to play with if you drop them on to the floor."

I took it up in my arms and carried it sorrowfully to G.o.dfather Gilpin.

He was very kind, and said it was not hurt, and I might go on playing with the others; but I could see him stroking its brown leather and gold back, as if it had been bruised and wanted comforting, and I was far too sorry about it to go on preaching, even if I had had anything to preach.

I picked up the smallest book I could see in the congregation, and sat down and pretended to read. There were pictures in it, but I turned over a great many, one after the other, before I could see any of them, my eyes were so full of tears of mortification and regret. The first picture I saw when my tears had dried up enough to let me see was a very curious one indeed. It was a picture of two men carrying what looked like another man covered with a blue quilt, on a sort of bier. But the funny part about it was the dress of the men. They were wrapped up in black cloaks, and had masks over their faces, and underneath the picture was written, "_Fratelli della Misericordia_"--"Brothers of Pity."

I do not know whether the accident to Jeremy Taylor had made G.o.dfather Gilpin too anxious about his books to sleep, but I found that he was keeping awake, and after a bit he said to me, "What are you staring so hard and so quietly at, little Mouse?"

I looked at the back of the book, and it was called _Religious Orders_; so I said, "It's called _Religious Orders_, but the picture I'm looking at has got two men dressed in black, with their faces covered all but their eyes, and they are carrying another man with something blue over him."

"_Fratelli della Misericordia_," said G.o.dfather Gilpin.

"Who are they, and what are they doing?" I asked. "And why are their faces covered?"

"They belong to a body of men," was G.o.dfather Gilpin's reply, "who bind themselves to be ready in their turn to do certain offices of mercy, pity, and compa.s.sion to the sick, the dying, and the dead. The brotherhood is six hundred years old, and still exists. The men who belong to it receive no pay, and they equally reject the reward of public praise, for they work with covered faces, and are not known even to each other. Rich men and poor men, n.o.ble men and working men, men of letters and the ignorant, all belong to it, and each takes his turn when it comes round to nurse the sick, carry the dying to hospital, and bury the dead.'

"Is that a dead man under the blue coverlet?" I asked with awe.

"I suppose so," said G.o.dfather Gilpin.

"But why don't his friends go to the funeral?" I inquired.