re-enter the ante-room through the casement window, and pass oninto a kind of hall lighted from the roof.
In this place there are so many pets of different kinds that it isimpossible to know which to admire or wonder at first. This hallcommunicates with another room with a larger window, which looks overthe precipice right down into the lake, where lives Joe the monsterpike, and the inmates of both rooms are free to scamper or fly--for herewe have both fur and feathers--from one to the other.
In these rooms are perches and cages and pens, and shelves and nests andcomfortable cosy corners of every description, and all kinds of seed andfood dishes, and abundance of water and an allowance of milk; andeverything--thanks to the little owners, and to worthy old Peter--is asclean and sweet as though nothing dwelt in the rooms. This is the home_par excellence_ of the happy family. The secret is, that everycreature must be young when placed therein, so that they soon come toknow that though they may play together, they must study each other'sfeelings, and neither hurt each other nor be rude to one another.
Right in the centre of the square room is a fountain playing, the sprayfalling down upon a charming little rockery in the middle of a stonebasin. The fountain can be turned on at the will of the owner, andwhenever it plays the birds take advantage of it, and fly across andacross through the spray, and so enjoy a shower bath. But the whiterats do not care for a bath, and when the birds, thoroughly wet andthoroughly tired of the sport, sit down on a perch to preen theirdraggled feathers, the cosy white rats in their garments of ermine lookup at them with crimson eyes, in which dwells a kind of pity, and seemto say, "We really wouldn't be you for all the world."
What other pets are there in this happy family, did you ask? Well,there are pet pigmy pigeons, and pet kittens, a tame duck, who isgreatly bullied, a sea-gull who talks like a Christian, half-a-dozenstarlings, who inquire into everything, and a jackdaw who is never outof mischief, and whom Effie has serious thoughts of sending into exile.
As soon as Leonard and she appear they are surrounded, and the din isfor a time indescribable. The dwarf or pigmy pigeons hover round themand alight on their shoulders and hands; the kittens chase the rats, whosqueak, and pretend to be terribly afraid; the sea-gull struts aboutcrying, "Oh! you pretty, pretty, pretties;" the jackdaw whistles "DuncanGrey;" all the starlings start singing at once; and the idiotic duckcan't think of anything better to do than stand flapping his wings in acorner and crying, "What, what, what, what!"
We tear ourselves away from this happy family at last, and make tracksfor the bird rooms, or aviaries. One room is devoted to British, theother to foreign birds, all nicely assorted and sized, so that they livein the utmost unison. There are soft-billed birds and hard-billedbirds, so there are both seeds and mash to suit their palates. Hereagain we have fountains, one in each aviary, and these, when playing,are a source of never-ending delight.
When the sun is shining upon the foreign aviary, what a sight it is tosee those birds, in all their brilliancy of colour and beauty, flittingfrom bough to bough in their bonnie home; but if you want music you mustenter the adjoining room, where the birds of Britain dwell. Gaudy theirplumage may not be but, oh! their voices are very sweet.
All round both these rooms grow trailing plants, that hang over theaviaries like great green plumes, and when night falls and the Chineselanterns are lit, and the fountains all playing, the whole place isindeed like a fairy palace.
But it is summer on the occasion of this visit of ours, the grass isgreen, and flowers are everywhere out of doors, in beds and rockeries,peeping through the moss, hiding under trees, and covering every porchand verandah with masses of foliage and lovely flowers.
Book 1--CHAPTER FOUR.
GIPSY LIFE.
"Calmly the happy days flew on, Unnumbered in their flight."
Anon.
"Moon the shroud shall lap thee fast, And the sleep be on thee cast, That shall ne'er know waking. Haste thee, haste thee to be gone! Earth flits fast, and time draws on-- Gasp thy gasp, and groan thy groan, Day is near the breaking."
Scott: "_The Dying Gipsy's Dirge_."
Scene: The ante-room of the fairy palace, Effie reading, Leonardlistening. Don Caesar de Bazan and Lady Purr-a-Meow all attention.
Man never _is_ but always to be blest. The delightful and happy lifeour Leonard and Effie had lived all the long sweet summer through couldsurely--one would think--have left nothing to be desired.
Both were little naturalists in their way, though they did not know it;both were poets also, though they wrote no verses, for their hearts wereattuned to the music of the wild woods, the song of birds, the ripplinglaughter of the rill, the whisper of the low wind through the trees, oreven the dash of the cataract and roar of the storm. No beetle or otherinsect was there, in all the romantic country through which they passedon their way to and from school, that they did not know all about; everywild flower was a friend; and the little furry denizens of the forest,that dwelt in old tree stumps, or had their cosy nests among the verdantmoss or the beds of pine-needles--all knew them, and never fled at theirapproach.
Curious children both were, for they cared but little for company intheir rambles; they were indeed all in all to each other. And eventhough they knew well that a welcome-home awaited them every day, theymade no great hurry, and hardly ever went back from school without abagful of delicacies for their pets in the fairy palace--green food andseeds for the birds, worms and dead mice or dead birds for the owl, andnuts for all who cared for them.
They ought to have been very happy, and so they were, yet Leonard wascontinually planning strange adventures.
The kind of books they read had much to do with the formation of theboy's character, as they have on the minds of all boys. But in thosegood old times there were fewer writers for the young than we have now,so poetry was more in fashion, and books of travel and weird tales ofghost and goblin, and old, old, strange stories of romance.
Sometimes Effie read while Leonard listened, but just as often it wasthe other way.
"I tell you what I should like to have," said Leonard, one day, throwingdown his book. "What do you think, Effie?"
"Oh! I could never guess. Perhaps a balloon."
"N-no," said Leonard, thoughtfully; "some day we might perhaps get aballoon, and fly away in it, and see all those beautiful countries thatwe read of, but that isn't it. Guess again."
"A large, large eagle, like what Sinbad the Sailor had, to carry usaway, and away, and away through the skies and over the clouds and thesea."
"No, you're not right yet. Guess again."
"A real live fairy, who would strike on the black rock where they sayall the treasure is buried, and open up a door and take us down into thecaves of gold and gems and everything beautiful."
"No," said Leonard. "I see you can't get at it."
"Well, tell me."
"Why, a real gipsy-waggon to wander away in, when summer days are fine,and see strange people and strange places."
"And tell fortunes, Leonie?"
"Well, we might do that, you know."
"Ah! but summer isn't anywhere near yet; the chrysanthemums have onlyjust begun to blow. Then we couldn't go far away, because poor papa andmamma would miss us quite a deal, and who would feed our pets?"
"Why, Peter, to be sure. He does more than half now. And althoughwinter _will_ come soon, summer will return, Eff, and the woods growgreen again, and the birds begin to sing once more, and the streams beclear as crystal, instead of brown as they now are."
"Well," said Effie, "it is worth thinking about. Would Don do?"
Don was the donkey.
"Yes, I think Don would do first-rate. I'm sure he wouldn't run off."
Effie laughed at this idea.
"Don would do. Don must do," continued Leonard, "and the carpenterwould help Peter to build us a cart--no, a van, with a canvas roof. Itwould be no end of good fun. And really, Eff, I'm so full of the notionthat I must run right away and tell
father."
Leonard burst into the room where Captain Lyle was writing.
"Father," he said, "what can I do for you?"
"Nothing at present. Oh! yes, you can though."
"Well, I'll do it."
"Leave me alone."
Leonard's face fell, and his father began to laugh.
"Father," said Leonard, "when I grow a great big big man, and you areold, old, and white-haired, and crawling about on crutches like AdmiralBoffin, with perhaps a wooden leg and a hook for an arm--"
"Thank you for the prospect," said Captain Lyle.
"How can you imagine such things?" said his mother, much amused.
"Oh! because I wish him to be just like that."
"Indeed, sir,