Transcribed by Philip Crompton
The hot African sun was shining on the calm waters of a narrow river, which flowed slowly through a dark jungle. In this jungle lived a family of lions – a huge lion, a fierce lioness, and seven little cubs. They had lived a very quiet life, and now lay basking quietly in the sun, while the cubs rolled in the grass or played around their mother. Suddenly the lion sprang up and gave a low growl, and pricked up his small ears, for coming down the river was a small boat, in which were four hunters, their guns ready. The lioness raised herself quickly, and, seeing the danger, carried her cubs off into the darkest depths of the jungle, and then bounded back to the side of her mate. And there together the noble beasts awaited the coming danger. Before long there came a flash of fire, and the lioness uttered a low moan, and fell to the ground. In a minute she was up again, but with a deep wound in her shoulder. Again a shot broke the stillness of the jungle, and this time the lion fell without a sound. They did not understand this sort of fighting. The lioness in great distress ran round her fallen lord. Then she ran to the bank, and sprang on the nearing boat. A shot went through her head, and with a thud she fell into the boat, half sinking it. The hunters rowed away, leaving the lion on the shore. As he lay dying on the banks of the river he thought, “I have never hurt any man; why should they kill my mate and leave me dying? If a deer or any animal on whom I feed had killed my mate and wounded me, it would have been fairly done; but one whom I have never hurt, it is not.” That night when the moon came out it shone on the noble lion lying dead; and the little cubs, having found their way back, were licking his wounds gently, wondering why their father did not wake, and thinking their mother would soon return. But he never woke again, and the lioness, who was no use to the hunters, was lying in the bed of the deep stream. All that night the poor little cubs yelped and ran about. Many days of hunger followed. One day the hunters returned, and captured two of the family, who are now caged up with nothing of the glorious jungle near, but a faint memory, and a strong instinct to burst the cage and wander off to the wilds again.
By Dorothy Stirrup – Hawthorne, Dukes Brow, Blackburn
Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 25th November 1905
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
In the middle of a large conservatory stood a tall white chrysanthemum surrounded by small ones of a similar kind. At the very end of the flower house, in a dark corner, leaning sadly against the glass, was a little scarlet chrysanthemum. Once she had been happy, even in this dark corner, for another yellow chrysanthemum had stood by her, and they lived happily together far from the queen of the conservatory, the white chrysanthemum. But that morning the yellow flower had been put in the group surrounding the beautiful queen and had forgotten all about her friend. The little scarlet flower looked wistfully across at the pretty group, but they turned their heads away proudly. The next day she was put among them, but they would not look at her, she was so much smaller than they. But the beautiful queen saw her, and bent graciously down and said, “I have often seen you in that corner over there, and I am very glad you have been put here. Don’t mind if the other flowers scorn you; I will love you always.” The little chrysanthemum murmured softly, “oh, dear queen, how kind you are to me.” She lived happily day after day, growing rapidly tall and beautiful. One day a careless gardener left the conservatory door open, and the bitter frost entered, biting the flowers’ slender petals and leaves. Quickly the scarlet chrysanthemum spread her broad leaves before the delicate queen, and all night sheltered her from the piercing cold. At last the door was shut, and a gardener came to examine the poor flowers. Many were seriously damaged. The queen had only one or two blighted leaves; but the poor scarlet flower had many injuries, and many leaves and petals were taken off. Then she was put back in her old place, but by and by she was brought out again, and placed, not on a level with the other flowers, but higher even than the queen. And the scarlet flower and the white one reigned happily together over all the smaller chrysanthemums.
By Dorothy Stirrup, Hawthorne, Dukes Brow, Blackburn
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 9th December 1905
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
The Roses and the Moonbeam
The Adventures of Billie Bluebottle
The fire was very low and red, and Marjorie was watching the queer shapes lighten and darken. There were hills and valleys, caves and rocks, and even little houses, with trees and flowers growing round them. Marjorie had been sitting there for such a long time, until she fancied she saw little people running about in a great hurry. At last they gathered round a little man who stood on a rock above the others. He seemed to be speaking very excitedly about something. Marjorie leant forward to hear him, until her face nearly touched the bars. But the fire did not seem to burn at all. And this is what she heard: “Her Majesty the Queen of Fire-Land is giving a picnic in the castle grounds, to which all are invited, and ____” He stopped suddenly, for he had caught sight of Marjorie’s face. He screamed and jumped from the rock, and ran to a large castle near. The people immediately followed, and Marjorie saw their frightened faces peeping out of the castle windows.
Soon, however the door opened, and a pretty little fire lady walked down the steps. She wore a crown and royal robes. She came quite close to Marjorie, and then said, “Why will you frighten my people so, and just when we were going to enjoy ourselves?” “Oh, please your Majesty I did not mean to be rude; but may I come into your beautiful Fire-Land?” Marjorie asked. When she said this the people shouted. “No, no!” but a little old man came up and asked the Queen to grant her request. At last she consented, and touched Marjorie lightly on her shoulder. Marjorie felt herself growing less and less until she was small enough to creep through the large bars but she was much bigger than the others. The fire was not at all hot, and she walked up to the castle to the Queen.
Soon a bell rang, and everyone went to the farthest end of the castle grounds. There they danced and played games, and the Queen joined in. Afterwards, they had tea, but Marjorie could not eat anything, because the food was cinders. Suddenly a funny little man ran up, very much out of breath. “Oh, your Highness, a great giant is going to put great clumps of coal on our land, and we shall be killed!” he cried. Everybody rushed hither and thither in great confusion. At last Marjorie thought of something. Her handkerchief remained the same size as before, and, gathering all the people she could get hold of, she wrapped them up in it. Then she stepped out, grew to her ordinary size, and pulled the handkerchief out of the fire. “The giant,” was only Jane, the housemaid putting coal on the fire, and she was very much surprised to find Marjorie holding a handkerchief full of cinders. Marjorie tried to explain, but Jane only laughed at her.
By Dorothy Stirrup Duke’s Brow, Blackburn
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 27th January 1906
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
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The Roses and the Moonbeam
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph 14th July 1906
Mabel was lying on the banks of a wide river, looking at the pale-gold water lilies floating about among the broad green leaves and clear water. “What a pity those water lilies don’t grow near the edge,” she said. I’d get heaps and heaps and put them in a bowl, and take them to mother, and oh! wouldn’t she be pleased.” She lay there gazing at the fishes swimming about amongst the stones, until the peacefulness of everything and the warm sun made her sleepy, and soon she shut her eyes and dreamily thought how nice the water lilies would look on her mother’s table.
Lazily opening her eyes, she was astonished to see hundreds of golden flowers coming swiftly down the river. Mabel sat up quickly, rubbed her eyes, shook her curly head, and stared at the approaching flowers. She thought she heard a slight whistle, different from that of a bird, come from among the lilies. “How queer it is that they should come sailing down the river like this; perhaps I shall be able to get some now, for they are sure to stop by that big stone, till they reached the big stone.” On, on the flowers came till they reached the big stone in the middle of the river, and then stopped.
“I won’t pick them now,” she said, half aloud. “Then they won’t die.” She shut her eyes again, wondering at the sudden appearance of the flower. Soon she was fast asleep with her golden curls tumbled over her rosy little face. The moment she was asleep there was a stir among the flowers in the river, and out of every flower popped a little fairy with a golden and green dress on, and all gazed anxiously at the little sleeping figure on the green earth. “Is it safe?” one fairy asked of the other nearest to the bank. “Yes, I think so now,” was the answer. “I was so frightened she would see us, but I don’t think she has done.”
“Oh dear, what shall we do?” cried a little fairy in dismay. “We can’t get on, because this enormous stone is stopping up the way, and if that little mortal on the bank wakes up she will certainly get hold of us.”
“Oh, what shall we do?” they asked hopelessly of one another. “Oh, I know,” suddenly said one fairy. “We will wait till that little girl wakes up and ask her to move it for us. Do you all agree? We can ask her not to touch us, you know,” she added. “Oh yes, yes; what a good idea, “they cried, and sat down in their flowers to wait for Mabel waking.
Soon the little girl stirred, tossed her hand into the water, and woke with a start. She sat up and looked round her and saw the band of water lilies in the river. She got up and stepped on to a stone at the side of the river, and bent down to get a lily, when something moved among the golden petals, and a tiny fairy stepped out on to a green leaf. Mabel rubbed her eyes to see she were dreaming, but no, there really was a fairy standing on the leaf. “Little girl,” she said, softly “are you awake now?” Mabel did not answer, but just stared in surprise at the tiny person. “Are you awake?” the fairy repeated.
“I – I don’t know,” said Mabel, slowly. At least I think so, but what are all these little things and all the lovely lilies here for?”
“We are water-lily fairies,” answered the fairy, “and we were going down the river in our flower boats to the great dance of all the water-lily fairies, when this big stone stopped us, and we are going to be so late—”
“And we thought,” interrupted another little fairy,” that you would move it for us.”
“Oh, course I will, if I can,” cried Mabel, and she pulled off her shoes and stockings and stepped into the water. She pulled hard at the big stone, and at last managed to pull it to the side. “Oh, thank you so much,” said the fairy, gratefully. “Would you like to come with us to the dance, instead of lying here?” What? gasped Mabel. “Come to a real fairy dance? Oh, may I really? “Yes, really; come along. Step into this lily boat,” answered the fairy, taking her hand.
Mabel found she could sit quite comfortably in the lily boat, it was so nice and soft. They sped swiftly on for a little while down the river, until they came to a deep pool. The fairy took Mabel’s hand and stepped out on to a broad leaf, and blew the faint whistle Mabel had heard before, and all the fairies stepped on to the leaves of the flowers. Mabel looked at the water beneath her, and wondered what was going to happen. Again, the whistle blew, and immediately leaves and fairies sank below the water to the bed of the river. Strange to say, Mabel was not at all frightened, but delighted at the lovely flowers, grass, and stones at the bottom of the river. “Come dear,” said the fairy, as she jumped on a fish's back, “jump up behind me.” Mabel did so, and soon found herself flying through the water.
After a little they stopped at a lovely garden under the water, and Mabel and the fairies got off the fishes, and went into the garden. There were many more fairies in this garden, and all were dressed in green and gold, and even Mabel had a gold and green dress on and was quite as small as they were. Soon they began to dance, and Mabel danced too. In and out she whirled among the mass of green and gold, and oh, how she did enjoy it. They danced for a very long time, until the fairy by whom Mabel had been brought blew her whistle, and all sat down on the grass and drank honey dew out of lily cups.
Soon, however, the fishes came back, and all the fairies said good-bye to each other, and sped through the water, and all went home on the fishes. Soon the fish that Mabel and the fairy rode on came up to the top of the water by the tree under which Mabel had been lying.
“Good-bye now, dear; watch for me often. I will come to you again soon. Here are the lilies you wished for,” said the fairy.
“Oh, the lovely lilies. Oh, dear fairy, I have enjoyed myself so much. I don’t know how to thank you. But do come soon. Good-bye.”
Mabel watched the fairy disappear through the water. She picked up her hat and ran to the house. She burst into her mother’s room and told her about the fairies and the dance. “And I’ve got you these,” said the little girl, eagerly holding up the water lilies.” “Oh, aren’t they lovely,” said her mother. “But darling you mustn’t lie in the hot sun again; it has made you fanciful.” But Mabel was too excited to notice what her mother said.
Dorothy Stirrup, Hawthorn, Dukes Brow, Blackburn
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 22nd September 1906
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
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The Adventures of Billie Blue-Bottle
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 27th October 1906
A Tale Of A Camera
Master Mouse
The Haw and The Hip
A Tale of a Camera
Everybody was mad about cameras. Everybody had one, and everybody carted them about. In every nook of the school garden was a girl with a Brownie l, tucked under one arm, and a packet of “negs.” On a printing- frame under the other. Everybody “snapped” everybody else unawares and out of every book fluttered some photo or “neg.” The cameras, Brownie l.’s, were considered as “ducks,” “darlings,” pets,” &c. but a Brownie ll. Was looked upon with a sort of awe. No one had one; every one wanted one. At last a girl, Loreta (Laurie for short), did get one from her brother, who was getting a better one. She was delighted, but the others weren’t. The Brownie I.’s dropped off a wee bit, and the girls stared enviously after Laurie as she marched off alone with her Brownie ll. She was awfully proud of her ll., and wouldn’t let any one look at it. She took crowds upon crowds of photos, and the next week tied her “negs.” up in a bulky parcel, and despatched them to be printed and developed. The whole school waited in suspense for the arrival of the photos. Laurie was left to herself. She didn’t mind; she spent her time in studying photography and in the use of Brownie ll. She walked about with her head in the air, and regarded the girls with a lofty indifference. They had only l.’s, she had a ll. She had vague dreams of photo fame, and bought about ten Brownie ll. films. The photo shops grew accustomed to the schoolgirl with the dark hair and triumphant face who entered their shops and said loudly and in a still more triumphant voice: “A Brownie ll. film, please,” or “ A packet of Brownie ll. printing paper,” and the people stared and turned round to look at the dark head and the jaunty sailor hat, flaunting the school colours, with a camera strapped over her shoulder. At last a parcel came addressed to
Miss Loreta Manley,
Heydon House School,
“Hinchley.”
Laurie went proudly up to receive it, and hugged it close as she glanced witheringly round on the meek possessors of the Brownie l.’s. She rushed away to her own wee room, and eagerly tore open her parcel. The photos fluttered out, and she snatched them up and gazed at them. Alas! – alas! On the first photo was a face on the top of a tree, the next was a hand of about three feet, with the end of a skirt where the head should be. Laurie threw them from her. What had happened? The Brownie ll. must be mad. Never had she seen photos like that before. Hot tears rushed into her eyes, and she sobbed passionately. The tea-bell clanged three times before Laurie tip-toed in, with her hair tousled over her flushed face. The girls smiled as they saw Brownie l. strapped in the place of the ll. Laurie came back into favour again, but beware, never mention
a Brownie ll.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph,18th May 1907
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
All was dark and still, except for the sound of red ashes falling through the bars of the fire-grate. Master Mouse popped his little grey head out of his snug hole and looked about. Yes! all was safe; he must get some food for they – that is his tiny brothers and sisters – had fed on a corner of carpet for a week and never a scrap of cheese or candle for desert! It was awful! Oh! it was quite plain that Master Mouse must go in search of food. So with a sigh (for Master Mouse was lazy) he crept out and stole across the hall. He was getting on finely, when, to his great fear, he spied Miss Tabby Cat stretched comfortably in front of the dying fire. She was fast asleep, never dreaming of the plump little mouse so near to her. Master Mouse waited a little, to see if she moved; it would never do to go back without anything. Miss Tabby Cat slept on, so he scurried down the passage and made for the pantry door.
Here was another difficulty. The space between the pantry door and the floor was far too small for Master Mouse to squeeze through, and he crept disconsolately down the passage, his dreams of cheese and candle shattered, and his long tail (of which he was very proud) draggling along behind him, when he saw a little hole in the side of the panelling. “Perhaps,” he thought “it leads to the pantry.” And his hopes revived again, as he popped into the hole. He found himself in a very, very narrow passage. So narrow that he could hardly squeeze along. But he struggled bravely, borne up by the visions of a feast. After wending his way, very painfully for a good while, he heard the far-off sounds of squeals and squeaks. Perhaps they were some friends, enjoying themselves, and he would be able to get something after all without working for it. You see Master Mouse was lazy.
The sounds grew louder and louder, and Master Mouse hurried along, till at last he turned a sharp corner, and came full upon a crowd of mice, gathered round little heaps of meal, bits of candle, lumps of cheese, and anything else that a mouse delights in. Master Mouse’s mouth watered as he eyed the luxuries, and at once he advanced to a solitary piece of candle and began nibbling. After he had eaten half a candle he started on the cheese, and it was not until he was halfway through a heap of this that the other mice noticed him. Then there was an uproar. They rushed on him, squealing, squeaking and uttering all the noises possible for angry mice to make. They bit him, and scratched him, tore his whiskers out, pulled his fine tail, and when at last they stopped for a second to refresh themselves for a fresh onslaught, it was a wreck of Master Mouse who squeezed up the narrow way with a dozen or more of his enemies at his heels. On and on he struggled, tired out, aching all over and, he was glad to find a wider passage where he could run with ease. After a little while the sounds off his pursuers died away, and Master Mouse took a rest in the passage and looked round him. He had not the faintest idea where he was; he had only been out food hunting once before and had never got into narrow passages under the floor before. How was he to get out? Wherever was he to get food for the others from? Well! they would just have to live on carpet a little bit longer. He had had a good feast, and so he was satisfied.
He got up and trudged wearily along, when a faint odour of toasted cheese met him. He hurried on as fast as he could and soon came out of the hole, and there right in front of him, was a little box with shining bars across and oh! what good luck! a big piece of toasted cheese hung temptingly near. Master Mouse jumped on the top of the box and tried his very best to reach the luxury. But in vain; he could not touch it; he pawed the bars fiercely, but it was no use.
His tail dangled near the cheese, through the bars; he stuck his fore-paws through trying as hard as he could to reach the cheese. All at once there was a snap. With a squeak Master Mouse tumbled off the box and fell with a thud on the ground, without his tail.
Poor Master Mouse! His tail was the pride of his life. Was it not the longest, finest tail in the neighbourhood? At least, so he thought. With one terrified glance at his fine long tail lying in the box, he scurried heedlessly down the corridor.
Master Mouse seemed bound to meet misfortune on this night, for, there in front of him, was the huge bristling shape of Mistress Tabby Cat. She was hungry, and she licked her lips as she eyed the plump little mouse cowering before her, and thought how nice he would taste, but, as Master Mouse had done, Miss Tabby Cat “counted her mouse before he was caught”. For Master Mouse, alive to his danger, warily slipped past her and rushed on, with the angry cat after him. She did not run her fastest, for she was sure of catching him. How dare the little creature try and escape? She would punish him for this; she would keep him in fear of his life longer before she made a meal of him.
But Master Mouse was a fleet little thing, and he dashed across the hall, with the cat, anxious now, bounding after him. She made one blind spring at him only to bound against the wall and then found that Master Mouse had disappeared into his snug hole. Fancy, beaten by a mouse! She lay down outside the hole, but he never made an appearance. Nor was Master Mouse fit for a long time to again go food hunting, and when he did, he was a wiser and sadder little animal, and took great care to keep away from the house where the cheese was hung, and also other people’s feasts.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 12th October 1907
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
Rosebud & Pukaboy
Away down at the bottom of the pond two queer-looking little objects were wallowing together in the thick mud. They really were the ugliest, funniest little creatures imaginable. Both had think dark bodies, heavy heads, and great sleepy eyes which seemed to be too big for their bodies. They crawled slowly and lazily along.
‘I say,’ said the gentleman grub, ‘Don’t you think we’d better be getting married soon?’
‘I suppose so!’ answered the lady grub, blinking her great eyes.
‘Well suppose we get married the day after to-morrow,’ said he.
‘All right,’ said she, and all at once she went to sleep. ‘She really is getting very queer,’ said he to himself. ‘I do hope that she is all right before the wedding-day,’ and away he went to arrange matters. The Black beetle said he would marry them on the appointed day, and all the bull-heads, water-beetles, sticklebacks, and other grubs promised to come to the ceremony.
Mr Wobblyboy (the bridgegroom) was very excited, and actually ran across the pond. But the bride could not be aroused. She lay in the mud, half asleep, and took no interest at all in the preparations for the great day. Mr Wobblybob grew alarmed, she was so changed. What could be the matter with her? He grew desperate, the eve of his wedding had come, his bride had only opened her eyes once and seemed to have forgotten all about the wedding and him.
Poor Mr Wobblyboy went to bed very unhappy. In vain his friends tried to cheer him and tell him that it would be all right. He did not sleep at all that night, but just as dawn began to break the weary grub fell asleep. All at once he was awakened; someone was poking him with a stick. A great grub stood by him, his heavy head and fat body shaking all over with excitement.
‘There,’ he said quickly. ‘She’s gone off.
‘She’s off- she’s---'’Where? Where? cried poor Wobblyboy.
‘Off! Off! Half-way up the lilyroot! Come on! Come on!’ Away went the two at full speed, poor Mr Wobblyboy wringing his hands (or rather his legs) in agony.
‘I knew something would happen. I knew it would,’ he kept moaning, as he went along.
A crowd of grubs had gathered round the lilyroot, and were watching with great interest the progress of another grub, as it slowly but surely clambered up the slender root. ‘Yes, yes, it is she,’ cried miserable Mr Wobblyboy, as he gazedupwards. ‘Oh! What shall I do? What shall I do? To think that she should go off and leave me like this. To think – ‘her his emotion became so great that he over-balanced himself and flopped on his back in the mud.
All his friends rushed to him, and by a great deal of pushing and struggling they at kast managed to set him firmly on his legs again. ‘Poor fellow,’ they said, ‘Poor fellow.’
Wobblyboy could only lie there and stare; it had been too much for him. Suddenly he felt an overpowering desire to go to sleep . Vainly he upbraided himself for forgetting his sorrows so much. He simply could not help himself. He shut his great eyes and dropped into a deep sleep. By-and-bye he awoke, feeling very queer and sick. What could be the matter with him? Something seemed to be compelling him to get out of the pond. The lilyroot swayed near him, he crawled trembling towards it. And in a few moments much to his own surprise, he was a good way up it.
On and on he climbed, very slowly and painfully. The desire to get out of the water became stronger and stronger. At last he poked his great head over the surface of the water, and in a little while he was clinging to a read a few inches from the water. An awful feeling came over him, then he remembered no more.
Two pale, frail creatures were clinging to one reed. They hung there thin, colourless and apparently lifeless. At last one opened her great eyes and saw the other above her. She nearly fell into the pond again, such a horrid ugly creature it was.
She drew a long breath and stretched her wings. There was a glorious creature with a brilliant body and lovely wings. She longed to fly away over the gay green fields, but curiosity made her wait a little and see what was going to happen to that other miserable looking object by her, so she watched with wondering eyes.
By-and by he woke too, and the same thing happened to him.in a few seconds another glorious dragon fly fluttered by her. He was even more beautiful than she was.
They were astonished when they saw each other; it took them a long time to get over it. At last the gentleman spoke.
‘How glorious everything is! Suppose we fly around together and look about this beautiful place, shall we?’
‘Oh, yes, said the lady fly. ‘I should like to very much.’
So they flew away together over the beautiful, gay world. They had forgotten about their old life in the mud at the bottom of the pond. And as to him being the ugly Mr Wobblyboy and she his future bride – why! They never dreamt of it.
In a little while they got married, this time without the bride going off, and I am sure were the happiest little dragon-flies under the sun.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, Saturday 14th November 1908
On the bare branches of the old hawthorn tree stood a little robin redbreast. He looked very dejected and lonely, his little head drooping on his red bosom, and his bright black eyes looking very unhappy. He was not chirruping gaily, as he generally did, on the fine, frosty mornings,
“Hullo, Rob,” shouted a cheeky little sparrow, “what’s the matter? Had no breakfast?”
“Oh, yes,” said Robin, “plenty.”
“Well, if you’ve had plenty, what’s the matter.” Food was all the sparrow cared about.
“It’s a great deal worse than having no breakfast, “said Robin, sadly. “I’ve lost my brother!”
“Oh, cheer up,” said the sparrow, not in the least concerned. “He’ll turn up soon.”
But Robin couldn’t cheer up. His little brother had been away two days now, and Robin had searched high and low. He was just wondering where to look for him next. He determined to look for him until he found him.
How frightened his poor brother would be, out in the wide world by himself. Just as Robin was going to set out, Miss Jenny Wren flew by.
“Good morning,” she called. “I’m just hurrying home. I’ve heard there’s going to be a fearful storm!”
“A storm,” said Robin to himself. “That’s worse and worse. Bobbie will be more frightened than ever. I must away.” He spread his wings, and away he flew over the fields. The sky grew greyer and greyer, the air was bitterly cold. “I don’t care about anything,” said the brave little bird, “if only I can find Bobbie. But, oh, if the wind begins to blow, what shall I do?”
The snow began to fall. Robin hurried on. All at once there was a great rumbling, then a fearful whistle.
“Oh!” cried Robin, “the wind! the wind!”
The great wind came rushing up from the north, whistling and screaming as it came. The trees creaked and bent before it. The snowflakes whirled round furiously. “Ha! Ha! Ha!” he roared louder than ever as he caught up the poor helpless Robin and hurled him before him on his way. “Hee! Hee! Hee!” he screamed, tossing him away up high, and throwing him down in the snow again.
Poor Robin lay there, with hardly any breath left in his body, and his little heart fluttering painfully.
But the thought of Bobbie helped him on. He got up and flew on; bu, alas! Back came the tyrant wind, howling fiercely. He seized the little bird, whirled him round and round, tossed him up against a tree, then, with one awful scream, flung him again on the piled up snow and rushed by.
Robin's wing lay broken, his heart beat feebly, the snow fell thick upon him. “Bobbie! Bobbie!” he cried, tremblingly. Then his eyes closed, and the fluttering grew fainter.
“Robin Redbreast!” said a little voice. “Robin Redbreast! Come with me.”
Slowly, very slowly, Robin opened his eyes. A tiny fairy stood by him, but his eyes closed again. Then he remembered nothing more. When he awoke he was lying in a cosy little nest. Little brown elves were flying hither and thither, binding up his broken wings.
He also felt so comfortable and happy, but, best of all, there on a twig above his head chirped Bobbi!
Oh, how delighted they were to see each other again! How they did enjoy talking over their adventures! Bobbie told Robin how he had been lost, and how the kind fairies had taken care of him and kept him there to wait for his brother.
The elves home turned out to be the sweetest little place, and when Robin was better he and Bobbie were very sorry to leave it.
But they went home to a warm welcome. All the birds came out to greet them. Old Lord Owl solemnly knighted the brave Robin, and the cheery sparrow brought him a fine fat worm to show his admiration.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 12th December 1908
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
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A Tale of Cheepy Sparrow
Jeremiah Bobtail
The Youngest Peggy White-throat
A Tale of Cheepy Sparrow
The other day, when Mr Cheepy Sparrow was sitting leisurely over his breakfast, the postman brought him a letter. Cheepy lazily opened it, and read to his great joy and surprise-
‘Mr Sunny Starling requests the pleasure of Mr Cheepy Sparrow’s company a dinner party on Tuesday.’
‘Well, I never!’ he exclaimed. ‘Fancy, me being invited to a dinner-party – and to Sammy Starling’s, too! Dear me! Dear me! All the woodland society will be there. How important I am! I must go off and order my new dress suit immediately.’
And away he bustled to the tailor’s -W. Woodpecker. There he ordered the finest dress suit that could be made, and then bustled off home again. He called in at all his friends’ houses on the way to tell of his invitation.
He was the only one that had one.
‘I’ve heard,’ he said to one, ‘that Duchess Dove and Lady Pamela Pigeon are going. I’m sure it will be a very grand affair. What a pity you aren’t asked, isn’t it?’
He said this with such a condescending air that his friends felt as if they would have liked to kick him out of the nest.
How the time did drag! At last Tuesday arrived, and Cheepy Sparrow woke in a perfect flutter of excitement. All that day he did nothing but gaze at his dress suit and try on his new tie and light gloves.
Just as the blackbird, who stood for a clock in the woodland, called half-past seven, Mr Cheepy Sparrow stepped out of his nest, carefully dressed in his new suit, his white tie beautifully tied, and his claws tightly packed into his new kid gloves. He strutted up and down a little before his friends’ houses in order to give them a chance of admiring him, then set off for Sammy Starling’s in a whirl of excitement. In a little while he arrived, and was ushered in by Billie Bluebottle, who looked very uncomfortable in a new livery.
Cheepy bowed on every side as he advanced up the room.
‘Who is this officious person,’ said Countess Harriet Henpartridge, eyeing him all over disdainfully. Then, when told, she cried out loud and angrily, ‘I did not know, Mr Starling, that when I cam to this party I was expected to mix with sparrows!’
Poor Cheepy Sparrow felt very embarrassed, and slunk away to a seat in a corner. There the great people forgot all about him, and it was not until dinner-time that somebody spied him.
‘The idea’, cried the Countess again, ‘of coming toa dinner-party and sulking away in a corner. But, alas! I fear it’s the way with all these vulgar people – they have no manners.’ Mr Cheepy Sparrow felt very much inclined to retort that she had none, but thought it best to say nothing.
When they went into dinner, Sammy Starling discovered there was no room for Cheepy at the table. ‘Hope you don’t mind.’ He said, ‘awfully sorry. You can dine after with Bluebottle the butler.’
Cheepy Sparrow almost cried with mortification, and was just going to ask Starling if that was the way he treated his guests when the Countess broke out again:
‘Indeed, it’s a very good thing, for I should never have suffered myself to eat at the same table with such a vulgar person.’
Poor Cheepy tried to stammer out something, but the words stuck in his throat, and he was obliged to go out of the room to hide his grief and vexation.
In the hall he met Billie Bluebottle, ‘Get me my hat,’ he cried. ‘I won’t stay in this house another minute.’ ‘Cheer up, cheer up, old man,’ said the Butler. I know what it is – I know what it is. Haven’t I had to stand it for four weeks. I’d escape if I could, but, bless you, he’d find me out – he’d find me out,’ and with this he went into the dining room. Cheepy Sparrow set out for home, wishing over and over again he’d never come.
‘It will get out all over town,’ he said, bitterly, ‘and everybody will crow over me and despise me.’
He went on thinking over what had happened, when suddenly he heard somebody calling for help. A minute later after a great bird flew by with a small bird in its mouth. The little prisoner fluttered and struggled. It must have seen Cheepy, for it called, ‘Mr Sparrow, Mr Sparrow! Help me, save me.’ Now Cheepy, though so conceited and proud, was very brave. He darted after the bird, which he found to be the Hawk, a dangerous enemy of his.
Cheepy was determined to make him drop his prey. He pecked at him with all his might, and fluttered before his eyes so that the Hawk could not see where he was going. He annoyed him is every possible way. At last the angry Hawk dropped his prey and swooped down on Cheepy, Cheepy calling to the other bird to make off as quickly as it could, darted away in the darkness.
On and on he flew. He could hear the swish of the Hawk’s wings behind him. His little heart beat violently, his wings began to lose their strength. All at once he remembered an old trick he had once heard of. He made a wild dart forward, then dropped noiselessly and suddenly to the found. To his intense relief he heard the Hawk fly on above him.
A little while after a weary and ragged little sparrow arrived in the wood. To his surprise a great crowd of birds were anxiously awaiting him.
‘Three cheers for Cheepy Sparrow,’ they shouted, and he was quickly surrounded by a noisy crowd, who praised him altogether.
‘I say, Cheepy, cried Robin Redbreast, ‘do you know who you’ve rescued?’
‘No’ said Cheepy rather wearily.
There was a murmur of excitement.
‘Why, you lucky fellow, its little Princess Dolly Dove, and here is the queen coming to thank-you.’ And so it was. Cheepy Sparrow was overwhelmed with tears and thanks and gifts of the queen and her daughter. He was taken to court at once, and raised to the office of Lor High Chancellor. His heart was nearly bursting with joy. Now he could afford to smile at the insults of Countess Harriet Hen Partridge and her set.
And I must not forget to tell you that Cheepy Sparrow soon found a pretty little wife, and they live very happily next door to the palace itself!
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, Saturday 23rd January 1909
Jeremiah Bob-tail sat at the door of his snug little hole, waiting for the sun to go down. The sun took a very long time to get into bed this particular night, and it aggravated Jeremiah very much. The sun seemed to know that Jeremiah was in a hurry for it to be dark, for just as he seemed to be dropping into a doze he would flare up again as bright as ever. But, still, even the sun can't keep awake for ever, and by-and-bye he retired behind his purple bed-hangings, leaving the world dark and cold.
The Jeremiah got up with a broad smile of content on his face, and went inside. There the little rabbit took a bag and a spade, and a few minutes later was walking along the road towards Sir Frederick Fox's garden. Night after night Jeremiah Bob-tail went to Sir Frederick's garden. At first he was very frightened for Sir Frederick was a fearful person to deal with. But after a little while, finding that nothing came of his nightly visits, Jerimiah grew bolder, and began to boast about his exploits to his bosom friend Tommy Tuftie. It happened on this particular night that Tommy Tuftie saw Jerry on his way to the garden. Now, Tommy was jealous of Jerry's fine white fur and long whiskers, and, besides, didn't Winnie Whitetail admire Jerry? This was more than Tommy could stand, for didn't he admire Winnie White-tail himself? Tommy determined to have his revenge. He set off in a hurry after Jerry, who was calmly trotting along the road.
Suddenly, an idea struck Tommy. He would go and tell Sir Frederick Fox that Jerry was coming to steal his carrots. What a fine idea! Jerry would be put in prison. Tommy would have Miss White-tail all to himself. Oh! What splendid chance. Away bounded Tommy, scurrying over hill and down dale – on, on, through hedges, gardens, falling into burrows and ditches; up again, panting and puffing; on, on – sliding down banks, leaping over streams, pushing through ferns, dashing against trees.
At last he arrived – breathless, tired, wet, but triumphant, for Jerry had not come yet.
He stole cautiously into the garden and made his way to the carrot-rows. Suddenly he was seized by his little tail, and a harsh voice shouted, 'Ha! Ha! Ha! Caught you now. Would you steal? – would you? would you? More tugs. 'I'll teach you to steal my carrots, young gentle rabbit, I will.'
'Oh, sir' cried Tommy, struggling vainly, 'Jerimiah Bob-tail's coming to steal your carrots.'
'Hey,' cried the Fox hoarsely, tugging harder than ever. 'There's another, is there?' Well, well! We must see to this.' He saw to it by tugging poor Tommy violently into his hole. The little rabbit howled and bawled to be set free, declaring, between the tugs that he 'never – no, never-stole any turnips or carrots -no, never, never-.' His protestations were cut short by his being forcibly hurled into Sir Frederick Fox's dungeon, thinking that Jeremiah would soon share the same fate.
Meanwhile Jeremiah had strolled into the garden with his bag and his spade. He felt particularly brave this night, and even went so far as to whistle a tune softly to himself as he started over the carrot beds.
He sorted out the finest carrots and slowly threw them into his bag. Then he sat down and leisurely proceeded to light his pipe.
Sir Frederick slowly crept out of the shade of the trees and stealthily crept towards the contented Jerry. Nearer and nearer he crept -slowly, slowly, slowly. Suddenly, Jerry turned round. He caught sight of the Fox's evil face. With one yell he bounded over the hedge, and was off over the fields, flying for his life. The Fox dashed after him. Full speed they went - bounding, leaping, scurrying. now Jerry was away in front - now the Fox was at his heels. Jerry's little heart was going mad inside his little body; the Fox's breath came hard and fast. All at once Jerry dashed into a burrow -safe-safe at last. Sir Frederick was thwarted. jerry was safe. But oh! what a sad state he was in. His whiskers were all broken, his fur clotted with dirt and blood, and his legs refused to hold him up.
By a strange coincidence he had darted into Winnie White-tail's burrow. Miss Winnie cried over him, bandaged him, and promised to marry him on the spot.
Jeremiah is slowly recovering now, under his little wife's care. But he is much wiser, though I can't say he is a sadder , little rabbit.
Tommy Tuftie went to the wedding. He was very dejected and miserable, having only escaped from prison the day before. He, too, is wiser - and sadder. But it is to be hoped that his spirits will revive a little under the strong influence of the charms of Mrs J. Bobtail's younger sister.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, Saturday 15th May, 1909
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Right down in the middle of an old holly bush there was a round, cosy nest. It was Mrs Peggy White-throat’s nest, and two Peggy White-throats had four very young Peggy White-throats in it. They were very fine young children – at least, so Mrs Peggy thought. And if great heads, staring eyes, and bald bodies are marks of beauty, then certainly these children were remarkably lovely. They were all very good too – except one. This one had a bigger head, bigger eyes, and a balder body than any of them. He was the youngest Peggy White-throat, and was the most obstinate and self-confident little bird that ever was seen.
One bright spring morning Mrs Peggy set off, as usual, to find some breakfast. ‘Now, my dears,’ she had said, ‘I hope you will be very good, and do take care of your youngest brother,’ and she left them snug and cosy but ravenously hungry.
No sooner had she gone than that youngest Peggy White-throat began to be troublesome. He kicked all his sisters, picked holes in the nest, and then declared that he couldn’t wait for breakfast any longer, and was going to find some for himself. Oh! how frightened his sisters were! They begged him to sit still. They promised him pickled caterpillar and grilled grub if only he would be good. But he was determined to go. Then they tried to frighten him, and said that all the bogey-cats were waiting to eat him up. But he only laughed. Then they all sat on him and tried to keep him down. But he had big feet, and kicked them off.
Then he scrambled up the sides of the nest, his three sisters hanging on to his one feather. He struggled vainly, for they would not let go. He hung over the edge, kicking and screaming, when -suddenly – the feather gave way, and the youngest fell through the prickly holly-bush to the ground.
Oh! how frightened he was! What was he to do? He had never been out of the nest before. Oh! how he cried to be back! But his sisters could not help him – they could only stare with their big eyes.
There he lay – on his back, his claws waving weakly in the air, and his little heart beating frantically.
He lay still for such a long time, and was hoping that his mother would come back soon when all at once he saw something shining from out of the grass a pair of great green eyes, then a great black head. ‘Oh! Oh!’ he screamed. ‘The bogey-cats!’ In a second he was on his feet – how he did it he never knew. Away he wobbled screaming. ‘The bogey-cats!’ Oh! oh! oh! The bogey-cats!’ Slowly, silently after him went those great green eyes.
Sobbing, gasping, hurrying on went the poor little bird, and on went the great green eyes. His little wings fluttering, his little bald body heaving painfully, on he went over stones, through grass, on and on, and nearer, still nearer came those great green eyes. At last he could go no further. He turned round and faced the bogey-cat, his little neck stretched out, his eyes nearly starting out of his head. The bogey-cat smiled a cruel smile, and tapped the youngest with her paws. The youngest nearly died with fright, and the bogey-cat was just going to pat him again when, all at once, a great dog flew up, yelping and growling. The bogey-cat was off like the wind, with the dog at her heels, and the little bird was left alone, gasping and trembling on his back. In a little while, when he had recovered, he struggled to his legs again, and slowly wobbled off over the stones. Oh! how he longed to be home again. Oh! he was so lonely and frightened. Oh! he did wish that Mrs Peggy would come to him.
He was tottering along, sobbing and falling, when he stopped suddenly – there was a great rough hand in front of him. In a second the hand had grabbed him and tied him up in a handkerchief. The youngest lay there among the birds’ eggs, quite unconscious. But the birds’ eggs would not let him be unconscious for long. They bumped him and jostled him about till he nearly went mad, and stuck his claws through the handkerchief and struggled wildly. Then the great hand took him out of the handkerchief and put him into a deep, dark pocket. There it was worse than ever. So dark and oh! so hot. The youngest was terrified. He was sure that he could see the great green eyes of the bogey-cat staring at him from one of the dark corners. Oh! the bogey-cat was coming again! The poor little bird dashed wildly to the other end of the pocket, and to his great terror dropped right through a hole and onto the grass.
Oh! would the frights never stop? Up the youngest got and hobbled away in great fear lest the hand should follow him. But it did not come and, and the youngest hurried on over stock and stone. He sobbed so hard that every now and then he knocked himself down, and was just in the act of falling with a very big sob when down flew Mrs Peggy, and in a trice had him safely back in the nest again. The youngest was too exhausted to speak. He shut his big eyes, and his bald body shook like a leaf.
Mrs Peggy, very much alarmed, gave him cowslip wine through a blade of grass, and by-and-bye the youngster recovered so far as to eat a little fricasseed worm – his favourite dish.
That night, when he fell asleep, cosy and warm under his mother’s wing, he vowed that he would never go out again without his mother, and even in his dreams saw the great green eyes of the bogey-cat.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, Saturday 3rd July 1909
It was a fine, frosty December afternoon, the sparkling snow lay like a spotless counterpane over hill and dale. Promptly at 2p.m. Billy Blun emerged from the Blun Burrow, and set off down the field.
He was going Christmas shopping, and he felt that he was a very important personage. An imposing scarlet comforter swathed him up to the eyes, a big basket dangled on one arm, and he chinked his money gaily in the pocket of his best check trousers.
“Let me see,” he said to himself, after the manner of Mrs. Blun, “a nice swede turnip, fourteen carrots, and a jar of pickled cabbage. Oh! and a preserved lettuce, and, dear me! I was almost forgetting, some dried oats. There!” with a self-complacent sigh Billy continued his way down the little path.
Very soon he came to Mrs. Lop-Ear’s. He went in, and, with a dignified air, chose a turnip. “Good-afternoon, Master Blun,” said Mrs. Lop-Ear, “very busy, I see! Now, what a help you must be to your mother, Master Blun, my dear.” Billy gave her a gracious smile.
“Might I ask, Master Blun,” she continued,” If you are going as far as Mrs. Tufties, would you be so kind as to give her a parcel for me, Master Blun, my dear?” Billy assented readily, though it was far out of his way, but then it was so gratifying to be called “Master Blun, my dear,”?” and, really, Mrs. Lop-Ear was a very polite woman, he reflected. Mrs. Lop-Ear gave him the parcel, and a message to be sure and put it in Baby Tufties stocking that night, being Christmas Eve.
He set off gaily with the turnip and the parcel for the next shop. Mr Samuel Short-leg, the proprietor of the carrot store, greeted him very heartily.
“A merry Christmas,” he shouted, smacking Billy Blun’s back so heartily that Billy staggered under the blow. “I’m glad to see you ‘Pon my word, you are growing up! I’m sure your father’s proud of you.” He continued flattering Billy in this strain until the fourteen juicy carrots were emptied into his basket. Now, look here, Billy, my boy,” he said in a confidential whisper. “I’ve got a little present for Widdow Bob-tail, just up the hill there. Now, do you think you could call with it, it’s not everybody I’d trust with the message.” Again Billy assented readily. Really, he told himself, Mr. Samuel Short-leg was so kind.
His basket was very heavy now, with the turnip and the carrots and the parcels, but Billy toiled manfully on.
He got the lettuce and the oats, and also met Lady Harriet Hare, who asked him to deliver another parcel. Of course, he did not refuse, it was such an honour to do anything for her ladyship.
He was struggling up the hill towards Widdow Bob-tail’s burrow, his heavy basket weighing him down, when he suddenly caught sight of a low wooden shed. Now Billy Blun was of an extremely curious nature, so, hauling his basket over his shoulder, he went quickly across the field to the shed. As luck would have it the door was half open. Billy could hear the sound of deep breathing. He put a cautious head round the door, and what did he see? Why no other person than the Bully Calf, tied to a stall, ruminating, no doubt, on his past sins. At first Billy was terrified, but seeing that the much feared Bully Calf was powerless to hurt him, he went in with great assurance. “Good afternoon,” he said politely, “you don’t look as if you were going to have a very merry Christmas. What have you got here?” He looked into the manger, “Straw! Humph! Not much of a dinner, now, is it?” and Billy began to give the Bully Calf a description of his own Christmas dinner.
“Fancy!” he said, “being tied up like a tame old cow, and having straw for dinner!”
The Bully Calf’s big eyes began to roll dangerously, “Yes,” went on Billy,” just like a tame old cow.” Oh! if only he had known that the Bully Calf’s tether was only a rotten rope. “Ha! ha! ha!,” grinned Billy, “fancy submitting to it! He! he! he!”
With a terrible bellow the Bully Calf snapped his rope and darted at Billy.
The surprised little rabbit made for the door with his heavy basket on his arm. “Oh! oh!” he cried. “Help! help!”
On came the Bully Calf, lashing his tail, his eyes rolling madly. Off went Billy, and over went the basket. The carrots rolled off down the hill; the turnip – the beautiful turnip – followed them. The parcels flew hither and thither. Bur Billy did not heed them. Away he went down the fields, Bully dashing after him.
On – on, over stones, across streams, went Billy, panting, puffing, crying. The Bully Calf rushed after him.
Suddenly the Bully Calf caught the trailing ends of Billy’s comforter on his horns. Billy was swept up into the air, spun round and round, then dropped with a thud into the snow.
Then the Bully Calf careered madly home again, the red comforter still on his horns.
It was quiet dark when Billy recovered sufficiently to rise. The stars had come out, the frost was keen, and Billy shivered without his comforter. Perhaps he shivered because he thought of the lost things. What was he to do? Oh, what would his mother say? and Mrs Lop-Ear, and Mr Short-leg? Oh, and Lady Harriet Hare! – it was unbearable.
He was wending his way sadly back over the fields, when he spied a tiny light coming over the snow. He knew it was a Will-o’-the-wisp. He darted towards it. “Oh, please,” he cried, “do help me.”
The light came on quickly, ant there, sure enough, was the little Will-o’-the-wisp and his lantern. Billy told his sad tale, and the Will-o’-the-wisp, being a good-hearted little creature, agreed to help him to find his things. Together they went down the hill, and Billy recovered his basket and the carrots, but the turnip and the other parcels were not to be seen. Billy sat down and began to cry loudly. “Bo-hoo,” he sobbed, “bo-oo-h-h-hoo.”
“Is that Billy?” came a sharp voice. Billy nearly jumped out of his skin, for it was Mrs Blun.
“Oh, mother,” he cried, I- I’ve lost-“ “I know all about it, you rascal,” she snapped.” This is the last time you shall ever go shopping again come here at once. No Christmas dinner for you to-morrow! No stocking either! You bad, wicked rabbit!” She dragged him off down the hill.
“And there I’ve had to go to Lady Harriet Hare’s and apologise, and Mrs Lop-Ear’s been up, and Mr Short-Leg, too. They found their parcels in a ditch. Oh, you wicked, wicked rabbit!” “Oh, mother,” sobbed Billy. “And the beautiful swede turnip,” she went on, “all knocked about and the lettuce damaged.” She had dragged him up the path by now – they were getting near home. “And your new comforter gone.” “Oh, mother, mother!” sobbed the repentant Billy Blun, “I am so sorry. Please do forgive me. I couldn’t help it; indeed I couldn’t. Please forgive me!” “Well,” said Mrs Blun, in a mollified tone, “I think I’ll forgive you – though you don’t deserve it – for it is Christmas eve.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 1st January 1910
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
Betty lay in the hammock, gently swinging over the meadow brilliant with golden buttercups, clover, and purple grasses. Just overhead a caterpillar dangled on its long thread, such a big caterpillar, and it was very strange, as it was getting bigger and bigger with every swing of its silken thread – a thread no longer, it was a rope now! Yes! A rope as thick as that hanging in the drill hall. But the caterpillar! Betty could not believe her eyes. It had a big black head, with great shining eyes, and wore a queer, tight, green dress, with lines like bars of music all over it.
It came nearer and nearer to Betty, undoing ts ball of rope and singing as it swung:
Hush-a-bye, babies, in the tree top,
When the wind blows the cradle will-
‘Where are they? Suddenly interrupted Betty.
Oh! Bless us! Cried the caterpillar, quivering all over in its green dress. ‘How you startled me, who do you mean?’
‘Why, the children of course’, said Betty’. ‘Oh! the children,’ the caterpillar smiled indulgently,’ are safe and snug in their beds.
‘But where are their beds?’ Betty persisted. ‘Up there,’ answered the caterpillar, nodding to the branches of the great elm tree overhead.’ ‘Come look at them,’
It seemed the easiest thing in the world, just then, to climb up that strong rope and see the caterpillar babies. So Betty caught hold at once, and away she went, hand over hand, in the most approved fashion. Meanwhile Mrs Caterpillar dangled at the end. When she reached the top Mrs Caterpillar called out, ‘Second twig to the right – wait there.’ Accordingly, Betty swung on to the second twig to the right and waited. Mrs Caterpillar, slowly, but surely, wound herself up, and soon she was standing by Betty’s side.
‘This way,’ she said, leading to a broad leaf that seemed as big as a little lawn, just then. But there – rolled in downy quilts – lay seven little caterpillars, exactly alike, and all dressed in the same tight green dresses, with bars of music all over them.
‘There now,’ said Mrs Caterpillar, with the air of a proud mother, as she displayed her treasures. ‘Aren’t they beauties?’ ‘They are,’ said Betty – and so they were from a caterpillar point of view. ‘Now,’ said Mrs Caterpillar, beaming delightedly, ‘we will have tea. You must look after the children while I make it.’
So Betty sat down by the babies and watched Mrs Caterpillar as she poured the freshest, clearest dew into tiny teacups, and spread honey on little cakes made from the flowers’ pollen. Then, all at once, in the middle of tea, when Mrs Caterpillar was telling Betty about a dreadful wasp who had terrible designs on herself and her babies, all at once, the seven babies sat up and clamoured for tea, and crawled all over their mother, who tried in vain to give all of them their cups of dew at the same time.
‘Ah!’ my dear,’ said Mrs Caterpillar, heaving a great sigh, as she attempted to free herself from the close embrace of half a dozen little caterpillars, ‘my dear, a big family is a weary burden.’
‘I’m sure it must be,’ said Betty, politely, as she rose to help her hostess. ‘Ah! Yes, my dear; but’ – with a sudden smile- ‘Bless their little hearts, I-oh! oh! Help! Help! The wasps! The wasps! The children!’ and suddenly, without the slightest warning Mrs Caterpillar toppled right off the leaf and fell down – down-followed by a great buzzing wasp. Betty gasped as she saw her friend dangling in mid air, helplessly waving her legs and whirling round and round in the most pitiful fashion. But she had not long to watch Mrs Caterpillar, for the seven enterprising babies began to crawl dangerously near the edge of the leaf. Then Betty’s troubles began. No sooner had she chased one safely to the middle than another had crawled back to the edge again – and so on. Poor Betty was nearly distracted, and heartily agreed with Mrs Caterpillar that a big family was a weary burden. At last she managed to get them all safely in the middle, and counted them over to see that they were safe. Then she ran to the edge of the leaf and peered over – there was Mrs Caterpillar still whirling round and round.
‘Oh! dear!’ said Betty anxiously; ‘I do hope I’m not going to be left to look after all these troublesome children,’ and she turned round again with a sigh. But oh! what did she see – just the tail-end of seven bodies disappearing over the edge of the leaf and seven heads waving about in space. Betty tried not to scream in case she should startle them off the leaf altogether. She crawled cautiously to the nearest one, and seizing his back legs hauled him to the middle of the leaf again. Then she went to all of them. She gave a sigh of relief as she pulled the last one back – but, oh, dear!, oh, dear! The first one had crawled back again. Betty rushed to his rescue, and drove him to the others, feeling very cross and very tired.
Just at this moment a pair of shiny eyes appeared over the edge of the leaf, and in a few minutes Mrs Caterpillar, breathless and very agitated, was standing by the babies and Betty.
‘Oh! my dear! She gasped. ‘The children!’ and after that she could not speak another word for quite five minutes. ‘They have been rather naughty,’ said Betty. ‘Naughty!’ indignantly cried Mrs Caterpillar, ‘as if my little dears could be naughty,’ and she began to kiss the little dears heartily.
Then a strange thing happened. The big leaf began to shake in the most alarming manner; it swung up and down, tossed this way and that.
‘Oh! oh!’ cried Betty in alarm. ‘It’s only the wind,’ said Mrs Caterpillar soothingly; ‘only the wind, my dear’.
‘Oh!’ Betty cried again, then toppled, as Mrs Caterpillar had done – right over the edge of the leaf – down – down- down-
She gave a violent start as she found herself in the hammock. ‘Why,’ she said, ‘it can’t have been a dream!’ And it could not have been a dream, for she heard someone singing above-
‘When the wind blows the cradle will rock’
And saw an adventurous young caterpillar dangling over the very same leaf in all the glory of its green dress, with bars of music all over it.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, Saturday 25th June, 1910
A Strange Night
Midnight in the Houses of Parliament. The child stood in the hall before the House of Commons, looking with awe on the statues of England’s Kings and Queens which decorated the walls.
Suddenly there was the sound of a large yawn, and, turning towards the statue of Richard III., the child saw that King was stretching himself in a most unkingly way. “A-a-y-ah!” yawned the King, stretching his ugly mouth to such an extent that the child called out, “you’ll get lock-jaw!”
“Ha!” shouted Richard, “speakest thou to me?”
“Yes, to you; the man that murdered the little Princes.”
“Thou varlet thou!” Richard shook his fist fiercely at the child. “I’ll murder thee – and that right quickly.”
“Peace to thy sharp tongue, Richard,” said the harsh voice of a beruffled queen – Queen Elizabeth thought the boy. “The child shakes in his shoon.”
“That’s more than thou coulds’t do,” chuckled Richard. “I’ll warrant there’s no room in thy shoon for any shaking,” He hunched his shoulders and rolled his wicked head.
“You are ugly,” ventured the child.
“Ha! sayest thou?” screamed the King, hurling first his sceptre, and then the ball.
“And you can’t throw straight either,” said the child, as he stepped lightly aside; “no wonder Richmond beat you in that fight at Bosworth.”
You see, the child was proud of his knowledge of history.
“Speakest thou of Henry of Richmond.” The King could scarcely utter the words, so angry was he. “That villain, that userper, that dastard –”
“Hold!” cried a voice that shook the hall – it was Richmond who spoke. Come, thou shalt swallow thy words – thou faulty villain.” He leaped from his niche, and stood near the child with his sword bared.
“Richard of England is no coward,” said that monarch, climbing ungracefully down, the end of his royal robes in his teeth.
“Going to fight?” questioned the child calmly.
“Aye! that I am,” spluttered the King.” “But I’ll run thee through first – thou dancing brat.”
“Richard, thou shalt not!” screamed a women’s voice.
“Richmond, gentle lord, I pray thee give me the babe.”
Richmond lifted the trembling child up to Anne of Warwick. “Ha! thou in the top left corner, hast not had enough poison to school thy tongue to silence?” raged the King. “But, come on, Richmond, I’ll settle thee this time,” and the two closed in combat.
Up high, the child, nestling against gentle Anne of Warwick, Richard’s unfortunate Queen, eagerly watched the fight.
The kings in their niches cheered each combatant lustily. There was a great uproar – a clash of swords and the cries of the kings - when suddenly it died away for in the door way stood the great Queen – “Victoria” murmured the child.
Richard and Richmond dropped their swords. “What means this brawl?” asked the Queen. “Brothers you forgot your kingly dignity.”
Richmond was already back in his place, and Richard was clambering up as best he could.
The Queen turned and went back to her seat in the Prince’s chamber, leaving silence behind her.
“See!” whispered Anne of Warwick, pointing to the rays of morning light that struggled through the richly-stained windows.
“Thou must go.”
“Yes,” answered the child; “but I will come tomorrow.”
“Aye, if thou canst,” said Anne.
The child climbed down with difficulty, and crossed the hall, but as he passed the entrance, he suddenly felt very tired, and the leather cushions of the doorkeeper’s box looked inviting. He crept inside, and in one minute he was fast asleep.
When he awoke he was not in the Commons lobby, but in his own night nursery. How he went to the House of Parliament or came back to his own bed – he can never tell. That afternoon, however, he went to the Houses of Parliament again, and he says that Richard lll shook his fist and that Anne of Warick kissed her hand.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 12th November 1910
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
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The train flew past the golden fields and tall tress – past the rich vineyard – but by the child sobbing in the dove-coloured cushions of the French railway carriage the beauty was unheeded. An unusually large fly settled on one hand; she tossed it impatiently off: it immediately re-settled itself. ‘Oh! go away! You horrid thing. You are French, too!’
‘Young lady,’ said a little voice (the fly’s), ‘do not be so hasty.’
The child dashed the tears from her eyes and started in amazement.
‘I am not French,’ the fly went on, ‘but English as-‘
‘Oh! are you really? Cried the child, delightedly.
‘As I was saying,’ the fly continued, ignoring the interruption; ‘I am as English as you are. I thought a winter abroad would benefit my health, so I consigned-‘
‘Oh! what’s consigned?’ interrupted the child.
The fly closed his eyes, and went on in level tones: ‘Consigned – in other words-, deposited or placed – myself in your pocket. I have just this moment come out, and I feel somewhat faint. ‘Your name is Bay, I believe?’
The child nodded.
‘An insane name for a child,’ remarked the fly. ‘Don’t interrupt me, please,’ as the child was going to speak. ‘You have a box for me to live in?’ Bay produced a small bonbon box after much fumbling.
‘What a funny fly,’ she thought.
‘Make some air-holes in that,’ ordered the fly. ‘And, my dear,’ – he changed his firm tone-‘cheer up.’ You have a good friend in the Honourable Theophilus – that’s myself,’. He pompously bowed, and stepped into the box.
‘Hullo!’ the station!’ said Bay.
‘Shut the box! Quick! Cried the fly. ‘There might be some swallows about.’
Bay put the box in her pocket, and clambered out of the high French carriage.
The Honourable Theophilus slept in peace in his sugary bed one night, but not so Bay. She sprang out of hers, and dressed quickly and quietly.
‘I’ll run away’, she said between her teeth. ‘Yes, I’ll run away. I don’t care where to. I’ll just run. I hate this place.’ She went to the window and threw back the shutters. The dark firs in the court below rocked under the moon. The sky was cloudy but it did not rain.
Bay put the Honourable Theophilus in her pocket, and crept out onto the broad, gently sloping roof, and cautiously crawled along until she reached the end. ‘There!’ she said, leaning against the chimney stack for a rest; ‘I’ve got the Honourable Theophilus and a box of peppermints, and I shan’t come back to this dreadful old school.’
The descent to the ground was easy, for the roof slanted on to a lower roof, and to climb down the shutters of the ground-floor windows was only a matter of a minute or two. Once out into the narrow cobbled streets, Bay flew as if for her life between the quaint, closely-shuttered houses. The noise of the peppermints rattling in Bay’s pocket, and the uncomfortable jogging of his bed, woke up the Honourable Theophilus.
‘Bay, Bay,’ he cried, shaken out of his dignity. ‘Cannon balls are knocking my house in.’
‘Only peppermints, Honourable,’ she said. ‘You are wrong this time.’
‘Take me out,’ commanded the Hon. Theophilus. ‘Peppermints are very vulgar sweets, and you must remember I was brought up in a a very noble family, and I am not used to close association with such common things as peppermints. But what are we doing out at this time of night, pray?’ he asked as he stepped out into the air and looked about him.
‘Running away,’ said Bay shortly, and popping him back into his box, she clapped down the lid and set off again at full speed.
The Hon. Theophilus bumped his little body bluer that it was before in his frantic efforts to get out, but Bay would not heed him.
Down the streets, over the bridge, and on to the long, white road she ran. At last she flung herself down on a heap of beetroots, which the peasants had rooted up from the fields during the day, and let the Honourable out of his prison. He stepped out in a very dignified manner. ‘May I ask,’ he said in his politest way, ‘what you mean by treating me like this?’
‘I’ve run away.’
‘So you said before,’ remarked the Honourable, ‘but might I enquire where you are running to?’
‘I don’t know,’ said Bay, the tears very near, ‘’I’m just running.’
‘Then, my dear,’ said the fly decidedly, ‘just run back.’
‘I won’t,’ said Bay, lying among the beetroots, and sobbing miserably.
‘Now, now! My dear, my dear!’ The Honourable spoke in his fatherly tone. ‘Just sit up and be sensible. Take the advice of the Honourable Theophilus, and go back again. In two months we shall be in England. You have no money with you and no-where to go. ‘Come, come now.’
‘I don’t know the way,’ said a weak voice from the depths of the beetroots.
‘I’ll show you.’
‘You,’ cried Bay in surprise.
‘Well, I know who will show you. Come on, follow me.’
Away he flew, and Bay, who had been thinking that the peppermints would only last a day or two, set off after him.
Back over the bridge they went. Then the Honourable turned into an open space before the old cathedral. There in front of her, Bay saw a little fire glowing in a rickety iron stand. A little old woman, in a huge flapped cap, slept by it. A hand-cart full of chestnuts stood near, and some more popped merrily in the fire, and shot and burst to their hearts’ content.
‘Hi,’ shouted the Honourable, ‘Hi!’
The old woman slept on. ‘Hi’ again, and ‘Hi!’
‘She’s French,’ the Honourable said in disgust. Bay touched the old woman who started and mumbled something, and promptly fell asleep again. Bay prodded her a second time, and then the woman woke up.
‘Bless me, she said, in French, of course, ‘what is little miss doing out at this hour?’ ‘Go back to school my little child.’
‘That’s what I want to do’ (Bay summoned up her best French) ‘if you will show me the way, but how did you know that I went to school?’
Haven’t I seen you walking many a time, and haven’t I seen you leaning out of your window at night, my little miss?’ said the old woman. ‘But what are you doing out now?’
‘I ran away,’ said Bay, ‘because I don’t like the school. France is not England, England I’m English, and –‘ these vague excuses trailed into a sob.
‘La, la!’ said the old woman, stroking Bay’s hair with her old wrinkled hand. ‘See, I will give you some hot chestnuts. Come, I will take you back, and at night, when you look out of your window, just look at the fire here, and think that your friend is sitting by it.’
The kind old chestnut woman led Bay down the street and showed her the school.
After thanking her, Bay reclimbed the shutter and the roofs, and jumped back into her room. She gave a sigh of relief as she put the Honourable back in his usual place, and looked out of the window at the comforting little fire in the square.
‘Honourable’, she asked ‘who told you about that nice old woman?’
‘Aw, said the Honourable, ‘we English flies know everything.’
‘Was it a bird?’
‘A bird. Did you say bird? Quick, shut me up! The Honourable was very much alarmed.
‘Well, you are stupid,’ said Bay, tucking him up with sugar and biscuit crumbs. ‘But what with you, and the fire, and peppermints I shall manage two months.’
And with that comforting thought she fell asleep.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, Saturday 3rd December, 1910
‘To-night,’ said Dame Flipperty-Flop, beaming round on her pupils over the top of her spectacles, ‘I shall give prizes in the wood. You must all be there in good time.’ Then, school being over, all the rabbits rushed off home full of excitement, for it was the prize day – besides, it was Christmas Eve. Billy Blun had no prize. No. He was always late and always lazy. He walked slowly home, thinking that next year he would work very hard and win all the prizes; he would go straight to school every morning, instead of tussling with the Bully Calf. He was so very quiet and good all day that Mrs Blun began to think he might be ill, and to doubt the strength of his appetite for her good Christmas dinner. At night, leaving Mrs Blunn and Sally to come on behind, Billy set off for the wood. It was a lovely night. A thousand stars glittered in a velvet sky. Overhead they were thick as daisies in a spring-time meadow, but low in the sky they hung clear and solitary. Billy’s spirits began to rise, and he broke into a trot.
On he went, over the snowy fields, and soon came to the wood. It was so dark here that Billy bumped himself up against the trees and tore his fur against the brambles; but he did not mind- his spirits had risen to an extraordinary height.
‘Now, Billy,’ he said to himself, as he felt his little heart bounding, ‘what’s the matter with you? When you have games of rounders with yourself inside like this, you’re sure to do something wicked. Well,’ he added, ‘I can’t help it anyhow.’
Suddenly he bumped up against something hard and round. He sniffed the air. ‘Turnips,’ he gasped. He stood amazed at his good fortune, then set to work. Such a fine juicy turnip that was so big! He finished it, and sighed; then sniffed again. What! Cabbages! Yes! Sure enough there was a cabbage. Without stopping to think, Billy was soon deep in the cabbage. But his surprises were not over yet, for he found another turnip and yet another – two carrots and another cabbage! Never, he thought, had he tasted such good turnips. What a feast! No wonder he had been so excited.
When he was quite certain that there was nothing left, he went on his way.
In a little hollow, lighted up by all the glow-worms Dame Flipperty-Flop had been able to engage for the occasion, the little rabbits, in their clean collars, waited expectantly. Dame Flipperty-Flop, in a very elegant crimson dress with a yellow border, was speaking to the visitors when Billy arrived. He slipped into a back seat, tugged his collar straight, and polished his boots up with the end of his neighbour’s comforter.
Then Dame Flipperty-Flop began. As usual, the speech-making was very dry and long. The pupils shuffled on their chairs, and even the visitors grew restive. At last Dame Flipperty-Flop said that she was going to give some very special prizes to certain scholars. ‘They are,’ she said, beaming, ‘the finest, juiciest turnips to be found; the biggest, freshest cabbages, and the reddest carrots. I have hidden them not far from here. We will go for them.’
Billy’s heart came to a dead stop for one instant, then went at a madder rate than ever. Oh! could it be? Were those the prizes? Oh! but the rabbits were following their mistress and the visitors, and Billy was obliged to walk miserably after them, in an agony of apprehension.
Dame Flipperty-Flop walked on, lighted in front by the glow-worms, and talking amiably to her guests. Suddenly, she came to a dead stop as Billy’s heart had done.
‘Why!’ she exclaimed, then stopped. There was dead silence, and every one looked at the few cabbage-leaves and carrot-tops that lay on the ground.
‘A thief! A thief!’ she burst out. ‘All my fine juicy carrots gone! my turnips gone! and, oh! My cabbage – my bea-oo-tiful, bea-oo-tiful cabbage!’ It was really heart breaking. All at once someone grasped the border of her crimson dress. It was Billy. Trembling, gasping, stammering, he choked out his tale. ‘Oh! Dame, please, it’s me, it’s me. But I didn’t mean to be a thief; it was in the dark – I didn’t know. I ate them. It’s me. Oh! I’m sorry, but it’s me!’
‘You!’ shouted Dame Flipperty-Flop, her eyes blazing.
‘You!’ echoed Mrs Blun, emerging from the crowd, brandishing her cat-o’-nine-tails, which she always took with her, in case of necessity.
‘Yes, yes! It’s me.'
‘Oh! You bad, bad, bad rabbit!’ screamed Mrs Blun. ‘You are always disgracing your mother, but this is the worst thing you have ever done.’
‘Oh! Billy, my poor child,’ said Dame Flipperty-Flop, who was by this time melted to tears at the thought of her juicy turnips; ‘I am afraid that you will come to no good in the end.’ Then she broke out again; ‘You are a wicked rabbit – a real bad, wicked rabbit! Where are my turnips? Where are my carrots? Find then for me at once I say!’
‘I would,’ sobbed Billy, ‘if I could!’
‘Groo-oo-oo!’ said Dame Flipperty-Flop, through her teeth, shaking him vigorously.
‘Wait!’ said Billy, suddenly. ‘I’ll get you some more.’
‘What,’ shrieked Dame Flipperty-Flop. ‘Find some more of my fine juicy turnips!’
‘Yes; they were good,’ said Billy, approvingly.
‘You bad, wicked rabbit was all the Dame could say.
But Billy was off like a shot, leaving the party very miserable by the carrot-tops and cabbage leaves. He rushed out of the wood and over the fields.
‘I know,’ he said. ‘In that barn over the Bully Calf’s stall there are some fine turnips.’ He soon reached the barn, and, as luck would have it, the door unfastened. He slipped in an waited. Ther was not a sound except the deep breathing of the Bully Calf. Billy went up the steps and into the turnip store. The moonlight streamed through the window. He saw the turnips lying on all sides: he also saw a big hole right over the Bully Calf’s stall. He peeped down, and could just see the outline of the Bully Calf’s big body.
‘He, he!’ he chuckled. ‘I’ll roll a turnip on him. ‘He, he!’ A turnip lay invitingly near. Slowly, very slowly, for it was big, Billy rolled it to the hole. He had a last look and chuckle at the Bully Calf; the putting his whole force against the turnip- one! Two! three!- he gave a mighty push.
Alas! The turnip – and Billy – fell with a thump right on to the Bully Calf’s back. With a loud snort the Bully Calf jumped up. ‘Grooo-oo!’ he rumbled, and waited. Trembling, Billy stirred in the hay. Down went Bully’s head. ‘Grooo-ooo!’ he snorted again, probing about with his horns. Billy gave a great leap into the air, and landed on a rake! Still, it was better to be banged on a rake than on the Bully Calf’s terrible horns. He lay for a little quite stunned, while the Bully Calf went on snorting. Then, remembering Dame Flipperty-Flop and his promise, he picked himself up, hobbled up the steps again, and set to work in real earnest. He rolled several big turnips to the top of the steps and gave them a push.
‘Bump, Bump! Bump!’ went the turnips. The bully calf roared with fear, and Billy began to enjoy himself. ‘Bump! Bump! Bump!’ went another. How the Bully Calf rattled his chain and snorted and stamped!
But Billy for once was prudent; it would never do for the farmer to come. So he rolled the turnips out of the door, and left the Bully Calf to his snortings and his tremblings.
‘But now,’ he said to himself, ‘however am I to get those to the wood?’ I’d better go and tell them to come here.’ He set off once more at a round pace. Before long he was at the hollow again. He gave such a description of the turnips that all of the company set off with sharpened appetites to the place where he had left them. Once there, they all had a splendid feast. Dame Flipperty-Flop, and even Mrs Blun, quite forgave Billy. And Dame Flipperty-Flop went so far as to present him with a Brussel sprout, and wish him, as I wish you all, ‘A very merry Christmas.’
The Blackburn WeeklyTelegraph, Saturday 17th December 1910
Fountain Dragon
Further Adventures of Billy Blun
The morning was fine; one of those peaceful mornings that dawn under a rosy sky. But it was anything but peaceful in the home of Mephistopheles Mosquito (he was called Phisto for short). His father was in a decidedly bad temper and refused – absolutely refused – to support his family of thirty-three little mosquitos any more, Mephistopheles happening to spill his porridge twice, brought the paternal wrath on his head in a terrible storm.
“Go away, you rascal,” screamed Monsieur Mosquito, “and don’t let me see any more of you. You are big enough and fat enough to look after yourself. Go away, and perhaps we shall have better luck with an even number.”
For Monsieur M was very superstitious; he would not bite a black cat for anything; no, nor fly under a ladder; and if he chanced to spill the salt at dinner, he always threw a pinch over his left shoulder – often into the eyes of an unfortunate baby mosquito who might be hovering near. Here was a good chance of levelling the family down to an even number, so he bundled poor Mephistopheles out of the house and home and left him to find out the ways of the world himself. Now, Phisto was bold and brave, and he was not so sorry as he might have been to be launched thus in the beautiful world at eight o’clock om a fine morning.
He had a fly round and was very pleased with what he saw. But what on earth is a mosquito made for if not to bite – and very soon Phisto began to feel that he must bite someone or something. He set to work in a very scientific manner; in fact, he was a very Dick Turpin mosquito as he lay waiting in ambush.
Presently he heard the clatter of sabots coming over the cobbles.
“Ha!” he said, as he drew himself up.
“Ha! Ha!” He assumed a terrific air.
An old man shuffled into view. His head was safely covered with a big straw hat, he wore a blue smock, and was busily engaged in admiring his newly-painted sabots.
“Ha!” Shouted Phisto, dancing out upon the enemy and flickering about the front of his face. But the enemy was too engrossed in its sabots.
“Ha!” whined Phisto again, and prepared to gain the promontory of the old man’s nose.
The enemy awake to the danger of the situation, “Va-t-en! coquin que tu es!” he said in a thick patois, brushing the mosquito away. But Phisto was athirst for war. He advanced again, but the old man whipped off the big straw hat, clapped it over him, and brought him to the ground. Phisto thought the end was come, but suddenly he aspied a hole in the straw. Should he escape? Vengeance was sweet? Why not hide in the ribs of the straw? He chuckled as he squeezed himself into a niche.
By-and-by the old man picked up the hat very carefully, shook it, and ran a little way. Then, seeing no mosquito, he concluded that his tormentor was smothered on the grass.
“Bon!” he exclaimed, and put his hat on again. Then Phisto sallied forth and gave a good hard bite. He was off through the hole before the old man had cried out – laughing so heartily that he could hardly fly, as he watched the enemy retreat, much discomfited and finding no consolation even in the orange coloured sabots.
And that was bite the first.
He flew on, whirling round and round in the sunlight; darting high and dropping low, and singing his version of “Au clair de la lune,” a song he had heard the children singing underneath his old home.
He came to the river, a broad expanse of flashing silver, and at first his eyes were quite dazzled. When he became accustomed to the brightness he saw that he was just near a woman, washing lined at the edge of the water.
Her striped skirts were all tucked into the little box she knelt in, and the wings of her big white cap flapped to and fro as she scrubbed, rubbed and rinsed.
“Ha!” said Mephistopheles, as the flash of the womans arms caught his attention.
“Here’s a chance.”
He advanced boldly to the fray. But the woman saw him, and made a bob at him with her white cap as a horse might have done in the same case. Phisto retired, but not beaten. He waited, then dashed up and attacked his victim with such force that she jumped up suddenly, toppling the little box into the river, and calling out at the top of her voice. He fluttered round, gloating over his victory. This exasperated the woman more than ever. She seized the pail of hot water standing near and flung its contents in the direction of Phisto.
“I’ll drown you – little beast,” she cried. But the water fell to the ground with a harmless plop, and Phisto appeared, chuckling, several yards higher up. He flew off then, and the sulky woman rescued her box and tramped off home for some more hot water.
And that was bite the second.
While Phisto was balancing himself on the end of a swaying twig, he saw a large, clumsy object moving down the river. His curiosity was excited, and he set off to investigate.
The object proved to be a timber barge – very long and narrow – with the smallest little house imaginable, poked away at one end. On the roof of this house reposed a dog watching his mistress’s preparations for dinner with a largely critical eye.
“He looks as if he wants rousing,” said Phisto compassionately – and sauntered gaily up to make an attempt. He threw himself up against the dog’s nose in the most tantalising way. Then finding it was no use - he bit hard and long. The dog howled and turned fiercely on his adversary.
The lightness and quickness of Phisto enraged him. He beat his paws against the air; fancied he had captured something and nuzzled his nose into his forepaws – only to find Phisto dancing within half an inch of him, in an extasy of delight.
The dog darted up and bit fiercely at the air. The wary Phisto retreated – the dog followed – gnashing his teeth. The roof sloped and had no platform. Evidently the dog had forgotten this, for alas! seeing his enemy just within reach – he bounded – missed Phisto – but hit the water instead with a loud splash.
Phisto was beside himself with joy as he saw the woman scatter potatoes and carrots to the winds and rush to the rescue of the dog – who was hauled in and sent to his kennel underneath the timber logs.
And that was bite the third.
“Ah me!” sighed Phisto happily after spending a delightful afternoon. “It seems to good to be true! What a time I am having.
“Hullo, old fellow,” called a passing companion. “you look pleased with yourself.”
“I’ve had the best hunt out this morning,” said Phisto, and proceeded to relate his adventures.
The friendly mosquito laughed heartily.
“But I worn you,” he shouted as he flew on. “Beware of the webs! There’s a large one in that tree over there!”
“Pooh!” said Phisto to himself. “Who’s afraid of webs or spiders? Haven’t I thrown a dog into the water?”
He fancied himself a very Samson.
“I’ll go and have a look at the trap anyhow,” he said contemptuously. He flew and came upon a silken wheel glittering in the last rays of sunlight.
“I suppose this is it!” he said. “Bah! As if this stuff could hurt us. I’ll just have to walk round it, and tell that fellow what I think of his trapps.” He set his feet on the web. He wanted to walk round, but he couldn't lift his feet. What was the matter? He thought he could fly, but his wings stuck. What should he do? He struggled and fought, but it was no use; the slender threads bound him tight, and a sort of glue spread itself over him.
By-and-by the great round moon came up over the river and all the little stars in her train. Her light fell on Mephistopheles dangling in mid-air, and showed a big black spider sliding slowly down her thread.
And thus was the biter bit. Poor Mephistopheles!
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 8th July, 1911
Transcibed by Philip Crompton
Translation of French text
Va-t-en! coquin que tu es - “Go away, naughty girl that you are”
Au clair de la lune -A French children’s song – “by the light of the moon” or “In the moonlight”
Sabot = Mephistopheles = The Devil
“Really,” said Mrs. Blun, as she darned Billy’s sixth sock. “Really, Mrs. Lop-Ear, I’m seriously thinking of putting Billy in business. He never will do any good at school. Dame Flipperty-Flop is always complaining about him. Why, it was only yesterday that he hit her with an ink blob.” Mrs. Blun heaved a big sigh, and looked over her spectacles at Mrs. Lop-Ear, who was seated comfortably, with her knitting, by the fire. Billy was supposed to be in bed, but, as a matter of fact he was sitting on the roof, feeling very awe-struck and good as he watched the red moon rise like a great lamp in the sky. Of course, Mrs. Blun did not know this, and was enjoying the restful feeling which came only when Billy was out of the way and in bed.
“Well, Mrs. Blun,” said Mrs. Lop-Ear, laying down her knitting, “l think it is a very sensible idea, l do, and, what’s more, l don’t think you could do better than put him in our shop.”
Thus having said her say, Mrs. Lop-Ear took up her knitting again.
It was Mrs. Blun’s turn to put down her work. “What! You don’t mean to say that Mr. Lop-Ear would be bothered by our Billy?”
“Mrs. Blun,” said Mr. Lop-Ear, weightily, “seeing that we’ve been such good friends since we were girls, and seeing that you’ll pay a little bit of a premium, l don’t see why Mr. Lop-Ear should object, as I’ve suggested it. Besides, Billy isn’t as black as he’s painted.”
“Thank you, Mrs. Lop-Ear, thank you,” and Mrs. Blun wiped her eye with Billy’s sock. “l think it will be a good opening for him, and if he’ll give his mind to a thing, he’ll be alright. I’ll go and see Dame Flipperty-Flop tomorrow, and Billy shall start at your shop the day after. We can arrange things with Mr. Lop-Ear, as he is coming up to fetch you. Now, Sally, set the supper and see that the porridge is boiling. That’s a load of my mind to see Billy settled at last.
And so it was all arranged. Billy’s school days were over, and he was not sorry. He was so good that last day at school that Dame Flipperty-Flop and all the little girls cried over him, and the boys gave him all the turnips they had brought to eat behind their desks when the Dame was not looking. He felt rather downhearted himself, but the thought of his own importance as a business rabbit soon cheered him up. Besides, Billy’s overflowing high spirits were never subdued to any great extent – indeed, they only came out the readier for any slight damping.
The first few days at the shop Billy, on his best behavior, was initiated into the dusky mysteries of oats and flower stores. His mouth watered at the sight of the juicy turnips and dried apples, but he was strictly honourable, and never so much as handled them. Mr. Lop-Ear was delighted with his apprentice, and all seemed to be going very well.
But alas! this state of affairs was not to last! How could it?
On the fifth morning of his business career, Billy set off as usual. The morning was clear and fresh, with just a hint of frost in the air. It was this sharpness that sent Billy’s young blood rushing madly through his veins. But Billy was growing cautious. He sat down on a bank and began to reason with himself. He had not gone very far in his reasoning when suddenly a little, round, red crab-apple fell plump at his feet. He looked up, and there were hundreds dangling over his head. Up he jumped and shook the tree with all his might. The apples fell in showers, and Billy stuffed his eight pockets to bulging point. Then he sauntered quietly along, munching as he went.
As he rounded a big hollybush, who should he see dozing peacefully a few yards away but the Bully Calf. Billy was startled at first, but soon recovered himself. He took a hard crab-apple and, taking careful aim, hit the Bully Calf a sounding whack on the side. The Bully Calf snorted but did not wake.
Taking a bigger, harder apple, Billy threw it and hit the same mark. The Bully Calf started up and stood trembling stupidly. The Billy emptied his pockets, and the apples fell like hail on the poor Bully Calf.
With a roar he wide awake now, rushed at Billy, but Billy was half way across the next field, chuckling heartily. Billy was late that morning – very late indeed, and, as he tried to scurry into his place he got himself entangled in a great stack of fly-papers. Mr. Lop-Ear came to his rescue with a birch rod he happened to have handy. It was a miserable Billy that was shut into an empty flour bin until further use. There, in the floury darkness, he repented him of his sins, and made resolutions never to tease the Bully Calf any more.
Now it happened that Mrs. Lop-Ear wanted some flour at that time. How was Billy to know that she would come to the wrong bin? Anyhow, when Mrs. Lop-Ear opened the lid in the dark, and a fluffy object jumped out on her, she promptly screamed and fainted. Bill shouted lustily for Mr. Lop-Ear, and while waiting for assistance poured treacle over the unfortunate lady’s ears in the hope of bringing her around.
Mr. Lop-Ear rushed in; picked up his wife; carried her into the air, leaving a black stream of treacle on the clean, white floor. He gasped when he saw the sticky state of his wife’s headgear; and in the intervals of fanning and sprinkling with water and administering smelling-salts, he gave Billy one or two flying kicks which that unfortunate never forgot.
At last Mrs. Lop-Ear came round, and Mr. Lop-Ear had time to attend seriously to Billy. He brandished the birch rod in a terrific manner, and would surely broken every bone in Billy’s body had not Mrs. Lop-Ear, looking rather drenched, implored her husband to spare him for his mother’s sake.
“Well, my dear,” he said. “If it were any one else but you that asked me, I would not withhold my hand upon any consideration, but seeing it is as it is, it is all right and overlooked for this time.”
“Thank you, sir,” said the penitent Billy.
“And now, you young rascal,” said Mr. Lop-Ear, changing his tone. “Get off with this sack of oats up to Lady Harriet Hare’s, and mind you don’t get up to any mischief on the way.”
So, Billy bustled out of the shop with a great sack of oats on his back, and took the road to Lady Hare’s.
He walked along the little sun-flecked path under the holly trees, thinking thoughts, quite unconscious that danger in a very terrible shape was creeping up behind him. Indeed so deep was his penitence that he had not even noticed that this was the Bully Calf’s field. The Bully Calf crept up and up; then suddenly, with an awful bellow, he rushed upon the terrified little rabbit. He tossed Billy up into the air, caught him and tossed him down into the valley, and then driving his short horns into the oat sack, he threw it after his victim. Then thundered away in triumph.
How long he lay there Billy never knew, when he came to himself he found that some one was binding his head. He opened his eyes slowly, and saw the soft brown fur and pretty eyes of a girl-rabbit. He tried to sit up, but she pushed him back gently.
“Whatever has happened to you?” she asked.
“Don’t know,” said Billy, feeling very sick and very shy.
Then he remembered.
“Oh!” he wailed, “the oats!”
“There they are,” she said – her name was Jemima Bob-Tail – pointing to a heap of oats lying in a pool of water.
“Oh!” moaned Billy, “what shall I do? What shall I do?”
“What is it?” she asked. “Tell me about it, and let’s think about what we can do.”
So Billy told her with many wails, and she hard what to do.
“I know,” she said all at once, I’ll go and get another bag of oats, and we’ll get Timothy Tuftie to take it up to Lady Hare’s.”
“How splendid!” cried Billy trying to caper. “Here’s the money. I’ve got it alright.” It is – is – very good of you - l – l –.“
Poor Billy felt to shy to say any more, but Jemima Bob-Tail said she understood and went straight to the shop.
She soon came back to tell Billy that she had sent Timothy to Lady Hare’s with the oats.
“And now I will crawl home,” said Billy, and he tried to thank her again, but she wouldn’t listen.
So he went home to be nursed by Mrs. Blun. They did not scold him any more than usual. Jemima Bob-Tail cannot understand why so many turnips keep rolling in at her door, or why so many bunches of harebells are tied on to her knocker.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 16th September 1911
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
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The morning’s at seven,
The hillside’s dew-pearled.
I was just that. “Just seven o’clock” the sparrows told each other as they grubbed for berries in the earth; and as for the hillside, it glittered with crystal dew – shinning out in all sorts of unexpected places and winking a thousand eyes at the child tripping down the pathway. She was out early, but, you see, everything was calling to her, and, being a child, she understood and answered. She wore a freshly-gathered snowdrop just over her heart; and the flower heard all the secrets which were hidden in that wonderful treasure-house.
At the foot of the hill a little stream was making a good deal of unnecessary noise as it rushed on its way to the far, far sea. The child sat down on a mossy stone.
“Good-morning,” she said to the stream.
“Good-morning,” shouted the stream above its bubbles. “But I really haven’t time to stop. I’m trying to get to the sea before Springtime.”
“Why?”
“To show her I have done something worth doing,” the stream roared. The child bent down and moved some branches clotted with dead leaves out of his way, and he bounded on with a great gurgling “Thank you.”
Willow branches, covered the silver-velvet catkins, waved over her head, and she could not hear them saying:
“Push on. Turn more to the sun. That’s right. Now then, all to work. Send up some sap for our breakfast. We are coming on very well. But Spring will soon be here.”
“Why don’t you wait till summer comes?” asked the child. “The sun would bring you out without any trouble then.”
“But Spring is the first of all,” they cried together, and we must make a good beginning. Hi, there! Hurry up with that sap.”
The child left them to their breakfast and wandered on the stream bank. Already a few little red-tipped daises were appearing like solitary stars, here and there. She watched them wake up, slowly curling back each dainty petal until the golden centre showed. The snowdrop thought that the child’s heart was like the daises – gold set in a white little soul.
“Why are you out so early? The child asked.
“Spring is going to pass this way,” was the answer. “We make her path for her. If you followed it you would find her.”
“I would find her?” the child was surprised. “Well, I will start straight away.” And she set off down the daisy path. The snowdrop lifted her delicate head and looked out of her pretty green eye. She whispered the way to the heart that beat beneath her, for she wanted to see the Spring – even though she knew she would die afterwards.
On went the child, up hill and down dale, through wood and meadow.
“We are coming near,” said the snowdrop. “Give me a drink.” The child unfastened the flower and dabbled the stem in the stream.
“Put me back,” implored the flower. “I want to die on your heart.”
“Die!” the child exclaimed. But everything else is just beginning.”
“We are the snow flowers; some one must cheer the winter. Flowers are needed more on dark days.”
The daisy path had been getting rosier and rosier, and now the child came upon a bower of trees in leaf. In the middle Spring slept. The violets grew around her white feet, primroses and anemones around her hair, May flowers kissed her hands, and all the lords and ladies stood round on guard. The child went in very softly and kissed her. Spring woke. She did not speak, but her eyes said everything. Then they went hand in hand down the daisy path, Spring and the child, and all the flowers followed them. They passed by the stream, and Spring stopped and drank. The child heard him shout, “The sea! The sea.” And knew that he had reached it just in time. They came to the willows, and spring stroked the catkins and left gold upon them.
At the foot of the hill Spring left the child and went on her way.
The child climbed up again. She looked down at the earth, lying in all its dewy freshness. The peewits wheeled round her and the cuckoo called from the woods. The snowdrop, almost dead, heard the heart leap up with a desire to follow the example of the stream and the willow.
But as she laid the dead flower in the damp earth the child whispered, “I would rather be like you – a snow flower in the dark days.”
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 23rd March 1912
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
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Among the hundred passengers alighting from the high train on its arrival at the Gare de Nord there are half a dozen or so that venture to claim your attention for a very short time.
That gentleman, then, in clerical dress – with the battered Baedeker under his arm stammering out scholarly but unintelligible French to an impatient porter – is the Rev. H. Bairstow, who has unwillingly taken upon himself the task of conducting round Paris a select little party, drawn mainly from his own parish. The tall man looking on with an amused smile is Standing, the vicar’s friend. Mrs. Perkins and th’ mester are here, through the agency of the Rev. Bairstow’s brother, the village pastor. The young lady already jotting down notes in a reporters flapbook is, we may suppose, a journalist; so, too, is the faded, pince-nezed person by her jotting too, but less vigorously. Last, but not least – at any rate, not in his own estimation – is Newton, a downy youth, displaying to the best advantage his striped silk socks as he walks up and down in a small space, posing before the bloused porters and the mocking customs officers.
Now, after these introductions, give the poor things leave to go to their hotel. They are quite tired out by the long land journey in the jolting, rumbling, rickety train. Later in the evening Mrs. Perkins left th’ mester totting up the expenses in their room, and went to “recounter” the place, as she said. The hotel, not a large one, was situated in a quiet, unpretentious street branching off from one of the most important squares of Paris. It was well managed by a certain Madame Picquet and was almost exclusively patronized by English people.
Mrs. Perkins wandered into the empty dining room, and, finding the tables laid indulged in a favourite foible of hers, namely, a minute examination of the silver and glassware. The proprietress herself entered while Mrs. Perkins was critically pinching the tablecloth between her finger and thumb.
“Ah! Bon soir madame,” said Madame Picuet, suavely.
“E-eh now,” ejaculated Mrs. Perkins, surveying the profusely powdered little person. “Whatever can th’ woman be talking about?”
”Ah!” said Madame with a smile. “Good evening, madame!”
“Good evening to you,” said Mrs. Perkins, much relieved and shaking her by the hand. I’m right down glad to ‘ear you talk sense. Now, can you tell me where I can get a bite o’ somethin? to eat. I’m feeling right down peckish!”
“Mon Dieu”! Madame is feeling peekish! I go to find the docteur,” cried Madame, backing towards the door.
“No, no, no, not at all,” said the other, “you’ve misunderstood me. I’m peckish. I want somethin’ to eat. I’m hungry.”
She spoke very loudly and very softly, as if Madame was deaf.
“Aw, Aw,” said Madame, relived in her turn. “Madame is hungry. I understand. I understand. Peekish, peekish. It is a word to learn. Dinner is served in ten minutes, if Madame will mount again. The bell will sound when dinner is served.”
“Alright,” said Mrs. Perkins, “but I thought I could be goin’ on wi’ a bit o’ somethin’ like.”
Madame smiled, but did not understand.
“Come with me to the lounge,” said Standing, who had just come up, “and we’ll try and pacify the raging beast for a little.”
“E-eh! nay now,” remonstrated Mrs. Perkins, going with him; “you mustn’t say that, although she has got a good coat o’ whitewash on her face, and it seems hardly worth it. “You’ve no call to say that.”
“I meant that peckish feeling was as a raging beast,” explained Standing, as he took her to join the others.
The ten minutes before dinner passed slowly. The tourists were as quiet and uncomfortable as children at a party before tea.
At dinner, too, Standing noticed that an air of gentle frigidity pervaded the place. The other visitors, mostly traveling separately, ate in stony silence or discussed their pet theories in undertones with their neighbour.
Mrs. Perkins was too busy satisfying the peckish feeling to talk, or it might have been a little more animated.
Standing watched them all with his amused smile, and occasionally thought he saw an answering flicker at the corner of Hazel Crawfords lips. She had dimples! Dimples and journalism did not often go hand in hand, he reflected.
“I’ll startle them out of this freezing demeanor,” thought Standing – then said suddenly, in his deep voice.
“I’m going to the Moulin Rouge tonight,” is anybody coming?
A thrill of horror ran round the table. How dared anyone mention that place in respectable hearing? The Moulin Rouge! They turned horror surprised eyes at him.
“Standing, my dear boy,” expostulated the vicar, roused out of his abstraction by the mention of the dreadful place.
“What’ the harm?” Inquired Standing genially. “You don’t mean to say that you will go from Paris without visiting the Moulin. Why, it’s the best place for ‘copy’ in the city.”
Hazel Crawford flushed, and then said quickly, “I’ll come.”
Again a shiver of horror. Standing himself looked surprised. There was a terrible pause, during which poor Hazel was the butt of every genteel but glaring eye. Then Standing recovered himself, and passed it by as a joke.
The dinner ended in undisturbed gentility. Standing tried to avoid Hazel Crawford. “She’s quite serious he thought.” “I can’t understand it.”
But as he was going upstairs Hazel overtook him.
“Will you really take Passet and me to the Moulin Rouge?” She asked eagerly. “I must see some of the ‘café’ life while I’m here. I’m on the lookout for ‘copy’ you know.”
“Excuse me,” he said gently, “but I could not take you there. I don’t think you would want to go if you knew what the place is like. “I don’t think you ought to go.”
The girl drew back.
“Who are you to dictate to me,” she asked proudly. “Is Paris labelled – ‘Men only’ too”?
“You are unreasonable,” he said annoyed.
“You do not know Paris, and you ask me to take you to its worst den. Let me take you to the Café Riche instead.”
“No, I won’t”, thank you, of course.”
She turned and ran downstairs. He watched her go.
“She’s very young” he thought, “or she wouldn’t be so rude! What a queer child. Very keen about her work evidently. I’ll go and ask Bairstow if he knows anything about her.”
But Bairstow, absorbed in his Baedeker, could tell him nothing.
“I only know Miss Passet, and that but slightly. I know that they are wielders of the mighty pen; but of course, not in the same degree of ___”
“Sh! keep that quiet, Bairstow,” interrupted Standing. “I am here to help you – not a word of anything else. Think we are going to have some fun with the old woman, Mrs. Perkins, I mean.”
“Helas,” sighed the Rev. Bairstow. “The less the better, a mon avis! Now, come and help me plan out tomorrow.”
So they planned and talked until warned by hundreds of chimes that it was midnight.
Standing flung open the window and shutters then turned out the light. He stood listening to the deep-toned voices of the church clocks, threaded through by the silvery charms of the smaller ones.
At the end of the street he caught a glimpse of the mad, gay whirl of the Parisian world at midnight. Motors, cabs, carriages, taxis were moving swiftly among the throngs of pedestrians; the cries of the drivers and the warning note of the motor sirens mingling with the laughter and buzz of conversation. The little tables outside the cafes were crowded with merry, noisy bock drinkers. The radiance of brilliant Paris was reflected by a sullen glow in the sky – as if the heavens were angered by the beauty of an earthly rival.
So thought Standing; when a window was opened somewhere below his. He leant forward, and in the flood of light which poured out of the aperture he saw Hazel Crawford, and he heard the dreary voice of Miss Passet say;
“Turn the light out Hazel, do, if you don’t want all Paris to see into the room.”
The girl turned the light out. He knew that she came back to the window, for he saw the gleam of her white dress, in the light radiated from the square.
“Do go to bed, Hazel,” said the voice again.
“Listen Passet,” said the girl with determination. “I’ve got to make a good thing out of this visit,” I’ve got to see everything, and take it all in. And then I’ve got to write it down and get some money for it to help that brother of mine pay his debt, and it’s going to be hard work, Passet, because I don’t feel inspired.”
Standing hurriedly left the window, feeling like an eavesdropper.
He thought a good deal that night about the young disturber of his midnight meditation on the queen of cities. Next morning, at breakfast, the Rev. Bairstow proposed that they should visit the Louvre.
“Is that royalty, like” inquired Mrs. Perkins, biting the end of half a yard of bread and thereby trying the onlookers’ gravity to the utmost.
The Rev. Bairstow proceeded to explain in his kindly, if somewhat, pedantic, sort of way, and Mrs. Perkins, though disappointed, fell in with the general assent.
So away they went; the Rev. Bairstow, with the everlasting Baedeker under his arm, leading them through the pleasantest ways of Paris, along the broad, tree-shaded streets, into the delicious freshness of the Tuileries, to the vast palace itself.
Standing walked by Mrs. Perkins to save his already over-worried friend from the volley of questions with which he was sure to be assailed.
“And did you take the young lady to the ‘Moolang Roodge’?” she asked, after a time.
“Oh, that was merely a joke,” said Standing – while a slight flush rose to Hazel’s cheek.
“For shame!” said Mrs. Perkins. “You’d better go now and tell her what these ‘ere figgers are doin’ in a great place like this wi’out any hands or arms or any ‘ole limbs at all, for that matter. Somebody’s been careless i’ dusting them’ or somthin’.’
Standing turned to Hazel.
“If you will come Miss. Crawford,” he said, “I will take you to see the Chaucard Collection – there are some little jewels of Meissonier’s. I think you will like them.”
“Thank you; I prefer to stay here,” she said coldly, and as soon as she had spoken felt angry with herself.
Each turned away from the other. He saw her annoyed expression, and thought his proposal was the cause of it. He avoided her, until compelled to approach her by an amusing incident later in the day. The Rev. Bairstow arrived from his wanderings at the Peter Paul Rubens room. His little flock followed him, and he had begun to drone from Baedeker, when he was interrupted by a violent snort from Mrs. Perkins. That lady had cast a glance around the room, and then shut her eyes tightly.
“Get out of here!”, she cried, brandishing her umbrella. “Mr. Baistow, do you call yourself a Christian, bringin’ us to look at these ‘ere pictures. Get out, all of you!”
“But my good woman,” stammered the astonished man.
“Good woman, indeed!,” she cried; “I shouldn’t be a good woman if I stopped to look at these ‘ere. Get out!,” and she hustled the little party up the steps.
“But Mrs. Perkins, my dear lady, this is the great queen Marie de Medicis,” he expostulated, as she pushed him out.
“Meditchy she may be; but when I want to see exhibitions of muscles and fat women I’ll go to t’ fair shows at ’ome, Mr. Bairstow, and not come ere to see em.” She ended indignantly.
“Quite right, too, Mrs. Perkins,” laughed Standing, against whom Hazel had been unmercifully bustled.
The bystanders were highly amused, so much so that the nervous vicar suggested they should go back to their hotel. Fate seemed to have appointed Mrs. Perkins to be the thorn in this poor man’s side. The next day they drove to the Hotel Les Invalides to see tomb of Napoleon. In the general awe which fell upon the party on entering the magnificent dome no one noticed that Mrs. Perkins had not conformed to the order that all umbrellas must be left at the door. She hid hers under her cloak, and marched straight round the aperture in the middle. Hazel and Standing were the only two who really appreciated the solemn majesty of the great Emperor’s resting-place. The light streaming through the gold windows at each side of the altar seemed to make a perpetual sunshine in the place.
“The sun will never go down on his glory,” said Hazel, half aloud, in her enthusiasm, so that Standing heard her.
He shot her a sympathising glance, but she moved away into the colder blue light of the side tombs of the brothers. Standing’s eyes followed her, until she was roused by the sound of Mrs. Perkins voice, sounding strangely loud and out of place in the silent dome. She was leaning over the balustrade, pointing out something with her umbrella which had attracted her attention. Suddenly the umbrella fell from her hand and crashed onto the crypt floor below. The dome was suddenly filled with bustle and noise. Officials came running forward. Mrs. Perkins was loudly bewailing the loss of her umbrella, and everybody was asking questions. Mrs. Perkins was besieged on all sides, and was quite overcome by the unintelligible flow of language. The poor, trembling vicar did his little best to smooth matters over, and th’ mester unwillingly tipped the raging officials. Finally the umbrella was recovered, and the party left the building covered with confusion.
No one was sorry when she announced her intention of staying at the hotel next time with Madame Picquet, with whom, strange to say, she had become very friendly. Standing noticed on all the sightseeing excursions that Hazel was feverishly noting everything down. At lunch in the café’s, she hardly touched food, but looked round eagerly all the time. He wanted to help her in the task she had undertaken and with his experience of Paris and her moods he could have done so. He was interested in her, but resented what she chose to term his imagined masculine superiority and interfering manner, and therefore met all his advances towards friendship coldly.
He always managed to be near her, however, when they were sightseeing, to watch the effect on her of the dim, rich glory, of Notre Dame, the grace and beauty of the Luxemburg marbles, the memories of the concierge, and of the many wonders to be seen in Paris. She had made friends with two little children from the flower shop opposite the hotel. Standing used to watch the three from his window as they walked up and down before breakfast. When she was with them the anxiety left her face and she was as gay as her lively companions. Standing had made friends with them, too, but only went to them when Hazel was absent.
As the days flew by Standing amused himself by watching the gradual influence of the city on the party. The vicar’s conversation was freely interspersed with French words; so much so indeed, that it was quite unintelligible to everyone but himself. Mrs. Perkins, too had learned a few words and repeated them, parrot-like, on all occasions. It upset Standing’s gravity to hear her inquire in the shops “Combiong!”
Th’ Mester had taken to drinking bocks and white wine. Even Miss. Passet had adopted a fringe then much in vogue, long-toed boots, and a shrug. Young Newton wore a low collar and a great black bow a la Latin Quarter.
Hazel alone remained unchanged, indeed the tense anxiety in her face deepened every day. She no longer avoided Standing, she ignored him, wrapped up in her own work as she was.On the day before that fixed for the departure she did not appear at all. Standing haunted the hotel all day. At night he took up his favourite post at the hotel door. He watched the children at the flower shop over the way as they helped their mother to arrange lilies of the valley – Hazel’s favourite flower, so the children said.
“I’ll go and get some for her,” he said, impulsively. He crossed to the shop. The children were delighted to see their “bien bon Monsieur. But he escaped with promises for the morrow.
As chance would have it, as he was re-entering the hotel with the flowers Hazel came down the stairs.
She was very pale, and had a long envelope in her hand.
“Miss. Crawford,” said Standing, going forward, “let me take your letter to the post box for you. You look tired.”
She gave the letter to him without a word. The address was distinct-
“The Editor of the P___ S___.”
He gave a cry of surprise.
“This letter is addressed to me!”
“To you she cried, in amazement. “Are you the editor of the P___ S ___?”
“I am.”
She was silent for a moment, then cried.
“Oh! You will give me a chance, will you not? I have tried to good work, and it means so much to me.”
“I know,” he said very gently.” “I know. Come out and let us talk, as we should have done long ago. See! There is a taxi-cab. Then you won’t be tired.”
He drew her unresisting hand through his arm, and they went out together.
The next day they went back to England and, as Mrs. Perkins said “the tour ended very satisfactorily for all parties.”
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 25th May 1912
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
I was in Sussex, and as I stood at Harley’s gate for the first time late this spring, I mentally compared his quaint little house standing in its luxuriant garden with my bare, grey cottage and its adjoining plot of unrelieved black earth; I compared the well wooded downs, which rolled on every side, with my scarred northern hills. On the whole my cottage, and its surroundings lost nothing by the comparison; but on one point I was resolved: I must have a garden.
Harley was himself an enthusiast and as I watched him walking contentedly up and down his flagged paths, or working among the roses, the velvet snap-dragons and the deep purple Canterbury bells, the gardening fever, whose first symptoms I had felt on the day of my arrival, rose to such a height that I was all-impatience to get away and start a garden of my own.
I must inform you that I have no experience of gardening. I knew no botany, though I had feint recollections of experimenting with peas and beans in flannel and sawdust in my school days, but I could not remember that they ever reached any other than a greatly swollen, highly odoriferous stage. I managed, however, to obtain some advice from Harley without exposing my ignorance too much. He gave me a list of good rose-trees, which I was to buy at a certain store in London; so there I went as soon as I could decently leave him.
I was strongly suspicious that the man was trying to cheat me when he handed me a parcel of dried sticks, which he had selected from others, on my giving him the list.
I paid an exorbitant price for these sticks, but refrained from haggling because I feared to disclose how little I knew about rose-trees.
During the journey I turned them over and over, vainly wondering which end up to plant them. Suddenly a sentence from a school-book flashed across my brain, then left me in the dark again. All I could gather from this sudden visitant was: “Two parts to a plant …. Roots tough and brown, grow down into ground …. Stem and leaves-tender and green-above ground…”
I examined my sticks carefully. There was certainly no sign of tender green stem or leaves, so I came to the conclusion that the outgrowths were roots.
This problem solved, I spent the rest of the time conjuring up glorious visions of my garden to be.
I stopped at the town nearest the village and further provided myself with all the roots and seeds the shopman could palm off on me.
Half an hour later I was beginning the three-mile climb to my lonely little cottage.
It was too dark to begin work that night, so I was obliged to content myself with poring in bewilderment over my purchases. I spent the night in restless impatience and was up at day-dawn to put in a good two-hour’s work before breakfast and train time.
First I dug pits in the earth, planted my rose trees with the outgrowths downward, covered them with earth and placed sticks, with labels attached, to mark their burial places.
Next I arranged my cuttings in clumps here and there about the garden; several of the stems were broken, but I had time to put them in splints before breakfast.
Then I scattered seed broadcast and went in well satisfied with my mornings’ work.
“My garden,” said I to myself, as I ran to the village station, “shall be one of the real old-fashioned sort - all picturesque confusion. It will be a continuous source of surprise, too, because I have no idea what anything is.”
I was as impatient all day as I had been all night, I bought a gardening magazine. It was all Greek to me, but I hoped to be able to understand it by and by. I hurried up the rough hill road that evening, and fairly ran to my garden. I really think I expected to see something in flower. Damping disappointment fell upon me as I opened the gate.
The cutting I had carefully and hopefully planted that morning now lay in a state of limp exhaustion on the ground. I raised their little heads tenderly, but they were flabby, and fell back.
“They’re dead,” I said, with indescribable mournfulness. And I sat down on the cobbles and looked at them. A cold little breeze sprang up from the hills and, lifted their limp, loose leaves. It was too much for me. I got up and went into tea.
“Poor, poor little things!” I said with a backward look and a shudder at the site of the murdered cuttings, the rows of bare black sticks, the white labels flapping in the wind, and the bleak, accusing hills all round.
I shut the door, drew the curtains close, lit the lamp, and pulled my table to the roaring fire.
I spent the evening there with my gardening magazine from which I learned that I was to look out for an off shoot from my rose trees. It would come up a foot or so from the main plant, so it seemed, and was to be promptly amputated.
I made a note of this, and went to bed.
I rose at dawn again, and tenderly removed the dead cuttings. I made a mournful little bonfire with them and as the last pale wreath of smoke vanished into the clear morning air I suddenly realised the cause of their death. I had omitted to turn the garden over! Harley, I had noticed, was continually digging and raking his. How stupid of me to have forgotten it!
I hurried for the spade, and spent a good hour digging, taking care to avoid the rose trees.
I went to town in a cheerful frame of mind, meaning to get some more cuttings and begin afresh.
During the day, as I was walking down the main street, an advertisement concerning seeds caught my eye.
“Seeds! Why! I had some seeds.” I stopped still and clapped my hand to my head. “Where are my seeds? I’ve covered them up.” I shouted aloud. “Buried em’ yards deep!”
I set off wildly at a run. I had some vague idea of going straight back and digging them up again.
Suddenly I was stopped in my mad career.
“Nicols, my dear fellow, is there anything the matter?”
“Matter?” I shouted, trying to extricate myself from the butler’s grasp. “I’ve turned the garden over on the seeds?”
He looked at me in blank surprise, then set up a bellow of laughter.
“Let go!” I cried angrily, though forbearing to struggle for fear of attracting the further notice of the passers-by.
“No, I shan’t!” said Butler, still laughing. “Who on earth you would have thought you’d be the next victim of this gardening craze! Come to lunch like a reasonable human being! What’s done can’t be undone!.”
The truth of this was so obvious that I went. After lunch, however, nothing could alter my decision of going back to my garden.
I took more seeds and cuttings with me, and on reaching home through aside my coat and set to work.
I turned the plot over again, in the hope of exhuming some seeds, but it was in vain; they must have slipped down the clinks to the Antipodes.
About the middle of the hot afternoon, as I was resting on my spade from the delving and slapping and splitting of the great clods of earth, and was refreshing myself by looking round on my beloved hills, I was startled to hear a hoarse voice ask:
“ ‘ Ave yer any caterpillars?”
I turned to find a small urchin standing in his rags at my gate. One hand clutched a couple of matchboxes crammed with big leaves. The most curious expression of wistful anxiety was on his dirty, little face as he repeated;
“ ‘ Ave yer any caterpillars?”
“Caterpillars!” I ejaculated.
“Caterpillars!” I said again to the curiosity at the gate. “My small friend! Have the goodness to cast your eye around this garden and tell me what you see.”
The youngster did what he was told and, then said: “Nuthin’. “
“Quite right,” I assented bitterly, and stared at the plantless plot. The urchin stared likewise. We both stared until there was no speculation in the eyes that we did glare with. Then slowly I became aware that there was something of a reproach in the fact that even caterpillars should refuse to flourish in my garden. Harley had plenty.
“My friend,” I said suddenly, so that he started in his broken shoes. “come again sometime. I dare say there will be plenty for you later on. Going to stuff ‘em?”. I inquired facetiously.
“Tommy Briggs un me’s collectin ‘,” he explained eagerly. “We makes um run races on our wall, un Tommy Briggs say’s they’ll get inter a ard shell soon, un then the’ shell’ll bust on butterflies’ll come eat.”
“I see,” said l. “Well come again sometime. I’ll do what I can for you. There’s sixpence for you.”
“Thank yer,” he shouted.
He picked up the coin; I watched him as he walked down the lane polising it on his ragged sleeve, and whistling tunelessly on his way.
I went back to work thinking how I could rear caterpillars for his collection. I sympathised with him. I “collected” myself once; We all did at some times in our lives. Not caterpillars always. I began with nails and screw tops; then I went on to stamps, exchanged time after time for marbles and other like commodities. Birds eggs came next. This period I remember well, because of the rambles in the sweet spring days, and no less because of the spanking’s consequent on the rents in my clothes.
Then there was a blank for a time, until I took to collecting socks and ties. Now it is patent hair-restorers.
Well, I went back to my garden and planted all my cuttings and set all my seeds.
The next day I shut up house and went away for a month. I would rather have stayed to nurse and assiduously cultivate my garden; but I consoled myself with the thought that something would surely be out when I returned.
A month later I again toiled up the stony hill road, pleasantly excited and hopeful. I reached my garden.
Ah! The dessert blossomed – leafed rather! I hastened over the cobbles to examine my plants. Here was a fine, tall shoot! A rose tree! I rubbed my hands with delight, then stopped short.
Listen, reader-gentle or otherwise! It grew about a foot from the place where the tree should have been. I pulled out my pocket-book in suspense. I carefully compared it with the note I had made a month ago. It was no rose tree at all. It was the off-shoot that was to be amputated on appearance. “It must be done,” I said desperately.
I slowly pulled out my penknife, and deliberately razed it to the ground. I did the same to three others. I ran my hand over the pliant stems, regardless of thorns. I touched the broad leaves, and I sighed. Alas! Life is full of disappointments.
But if expectations are baulked today, there is still hope they may be realised tomorrow; So I turned to observe my garden more cheerfully. I bent to examine the row of bedraggled plantings, and I found them riddled with holes. Another disappointment!
“’Have yer any caterpillars?” same a voice from the gate.
I raised myself, with mingled feelings of anger and pride. “Come in,” said I, “and look for yourself.”
He came up the path, and searched eagerly among the leaves. “These isn’t caterpillars” he said after a time. “These is slugs”.
“Slugs!”
“Ay slugs,” in a tone of disgust. “Look at all this ‘ere slime on th’ leaves.”
“Where are the slugs?” I enquired timidly.
“Oh yer’ll ‘av tu go slugging when its dark, wi’ a lantern un a knife, un catch ‘em un chop em’ in arf.”
“Not really?” I said, laughing nervously.
“It’s th’ ony way them plants ill grow.” Said the urchin knowingly as he moved off down the path.
“Here!” I said, giving him another 6d respectfully. “Thank you for the tip, my boy. Just call in again sometime.”
He condescended to take the proffered coin and disappeared. I went into the house to wait until night should fall.
About 12 o’clock I lit the lantern, grasped the newly-sharpened carving-knife, extinguished the lamp, and sallied forth to slug.
‘Twas now the very witching hour of night-dark and still. I could hear the cows breathing hard and crunching grass two fields away, and the swollen beck rushing in the valley.
I crept up the valley, put my lantern down, and peered into the circle of yellow light. Ha! Here was a fine fat fellow. I flicked him off the leaf and slaughtered him. I cleared one plant of the ugly drab creatures. My spirits rose at the sport. I sliced them right and left.
“Soon shall we have gold-dusted snapdragon” I quoted contentedly. Hush! – I heard something - a step. I strained every nerve to listen.
Suddenly the knife was jerked out of my hand. I was firmly grasped from behind and thrown forward upon the garden. I struggled furiously, and finally forced my opponent under me.
“Lu”, Nichols! A burglar” Help! Help!” yelled my unseen assailant.
“I’m here, you fool! Who are you?”
“Oh ‘Lu’ Nichols, sir, is it you?” let go of my throat, sir! Take your knees of my chest, do!”
In spite of the gasps I recognized the voice of the village policeman.
“Green,” I shouted in amazement.
“It’s me sir,” groaned the man, as I helped him rise.” What on earth do you mean assaulting me in my own garden?” I thought you were a burglar.
“That’s precisely what I thought sir”
I burst out laughing, in spite of my bruises, and he joined in rather ruefully.
“It was rather smart, Green” I said at last.
“Well sir, I managed it quietly,” he said modestly.
“But you’re a pretty handful,” sir.
“Come in,” I said “and put yourself to rights.”
Before he went off, well satisfied, in the small hours of the morning, I learned that the shoots I had cut down were the main stems of my rose trees. I had planted them wrong side up and they had patiently righted themselves!
In the grew dawn I went out to view the scene of last night’s struggle.
What a wreck it was! Not a plant was left standing; leaves and shattered stems were strewn over the earth, together with broken sticks and mangled labels.
I was passing the Cross Roads on my way to the station a few days later; the world at large may have heard two boys, round the corner, speaking, or rather shouting, to each other across an intervening space of twenty or thirty yards, “Hast getten ony more sixpences from yon felly lately?” “Noah, aw think he’s stopped gardening; his bit looks as if Owd Frog’s bull hes bin at it. He’s nobutt terble daft at gardening, yon; but aw wish’t he’s a kep it up a bit longer; appen he’ll keep rabbits next, and then awse be able to show him sumatt else.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 21st September 1912
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
Nothing was wanting to make Tibbs the completest dandy in the town. Already soft and green of hat and head, and brilliant in nothing but socks and tie and collar, he added a monocle and a lisp; and if there is anything else that goes to make up a finished fop, be sure that he had it.
The other morning, as he sauntered up the high street, he met Brown conveniently near a group of young ladies.
Tibbs at once plunged into conversation; speaking very loud, with an eye to effect.
“How d’ yo’ do Brown? It’s a beastly age since I last saw yo.’”
“Only yesterday” said Brown, quietly, as usual. “Aw, yesterday,” said the unheeding Tibbs. “Yesterday I was down at Marton’s place. Wippin, shootin’! came back in his car. The Daimler, you know, not the Mercedes, I drove.”
Unfortunately for Tibbs, Marton passed at that moment without the slightest recognition.
“That’s Marton” said Brown.
“Yes; beastly short sighted, poor fellow! I used to be annoyed – fearfully annoyed at first. But he explained to me, you know! But I say, Brown” he shouted. The ladies were singularly indifferent, or perhaps hardened.
“You weally must come down to our place. My people will be delighted. We had a house party on last week. The mater and pater were in town. Deaf old aunt for chaperone, you know! Wather! We had a wippin time. ‘Bout thirty of us all together! Wondered wound the grounds all day; did a theatre in town after dinner, and -oh! Brown, my dear old boy,
you weally must come.”
He fixed his monocle with a hideous grimace, and at last captivated the lady’s attention.
Hugely elated, Tibbs flaunted a scented silk handkerchief, bent one knee gracefully, and placed one hand on his hip.
“I insist! I absolutely insist dear boy,” he drawled louder than ever. “You simply must come. My people will be awfully pleased. What do you say to this weekend?”
This ogling, this grimacing, this scent, this gabble of “people, places and grounds,” was all for the girls. Poor Brown might have been a statue or a picture for all Tibbs cared; he was a convenient excuse for a performance – that was all.
But Brown was to have his revenge.
“You weally must come” What do you say to this weekend? cried Tibbs again.
And Brown said, “I’ll come.”
Tibbs started. His monocle fell from his eye, his face straightened out wonderfully, and his mouth dropped open.
“What” he gasped.
“I’ll come”. said Brown again.
“Er–my dear boy-“ Tibbs began, but his eye, from force of habit, wandered to the ladies, and he saw that he still held their attention. He recovered himself with an effort, smiled feebly, and wagged Brown’s hand.
“Thanks awfully, Brown old boy. I’ll tell my people to expect yo’. Meet me for the 2.30 train on Saturday. Bye-bye!”
The ladies moved off and so did he.
On Saturday Brown found Tibbs, flamboyant in starred socks, pink collar and pea green hat, leaning over the station refreshment bar lisping and fibbing to the painted female behind it.
“Hullo old boy! There yo are” he cried as Brown made his appearance. “Aren’t yo goin to have a drink?”
Brown declined; he was not one of those men who need refreshment before undertaking a three mile railway journey. He was presented to the female as “My pal, who is goin down to my place with me.” He paid Tibbs account and went to the train.
Tibbs took care to find a suitable audience for himself as he prattled on incessantly on his usual topics – people, places and gwounds – that Brown began to entertain himself with the prospect of a pleasant weekend.
At the first station Tibbs stepped out onto the platform, and sauntered up and down, exposing his neatly plastered head to the view of the passengers. He called out once, “Por-ah! Is this the up-town twain?
But the porter did not seize upon the new appellation, and Tibbs was obliged to return to his carriage without the information.
He explained to the carriage in general that he wanted to know if that was the London train, because he was going up to the “waces”next week; and he discussed “vicious bwutes” his pater had kept until they arrived at their destination.
It was raining heavily over the dismal countryside, and Brown devoutly wished one of those same “vicious bwutes” had come to meet him.
But Tibbs took his arm, and they paddled up the lane together, whilst Tibbs prepared Brown for his entrance into the family circle.
“Yo’ see, old chap” he said, stepping daintily “to tell you the twuth, my pater’s rather a queer stick; got decided notions about the simple life; decent sort and all that, but wather a queer stick. Had to give up our town house, The Towers, you know, and come to live the simple life here.
“Watten! - you know – wather.
They turned the corner of the lane, and came insight of a square house, part in ruin and part evidently inhabited. It was completely covered with black, dead ivy roots, either burnt, or blasted in some way.
There was a small patch of garden in front and a dirty cobbled yard at the side.
Brown knew it for the Tibbs menage, because of a row of rainbow coloured socks dangled down a line in the yard.
So, these were Tibb’s gwounds.
Tibbs led the way up the garden path, and opened the door for Browns and a torrent of rain; then he ushered his friend into a dark little parlour, where, by the fitful flicker of a single flame, he saw an old man sitting alone. “Pater!” shouted Tibbs, “Here’s my fwiend Brown” The old man did not hear.
“Pater” shouted Tibbs, “Here’s my friend Brown”
The old man, without rising, drew a chair forward, and said, as if he was repeating a lesson.
“You are very welcome, sir. You are very welcome, sir! I-I-I prefer the simple life.”
Brown shook his palsied old hand and sat down by him.
“I prefer the simple life,” said the old man nodding his head at the fire. I prefer the simple life. Is that not right, Charlie?
For Tibbs had been showing signs of vexation and impatience.
“Of course, you Pwefer the simple life, pater, you always did. Brown, excuse me! Webbecca has forgotten to light up. The maids are so careless in the countwy!”
He lit the lamp and revealed the room. The damp had made grotesque figures on the walls – capes and bays and men on horseback!
The floor was of varnished wood, and had long splinters chipped out in places; strips of carpet were scattered here and there. Many of the chairs eked out their legs with little blocks of wood. The wind blew through the chinks in the faulty window frame and fluttered the dingy red curtain.
And this was Tibb’s place!
In a moment Tibb’s mater came in, gwaceful, isn’t it? Wants to go out every day to a beastly common school! And she’s a downwight suffwagist! I say, Brown, old fellow, what are the girls coming to?
“Their senses!” said Brown sharply.
“Aw! You funny chap” said Tibb’s. I’ll tell Mary that! Pwaps she’ll be more amiable to yow. Here’s your room. We won’t dress for dinner.
When Tibbs left him, Brown sat down on his bed and considered things, surrounded by a heterogeneous collection of objects – odd pictures on the walls, odd strips of carpet on the floor, with odd buffets strewn over them, like plush mushrooms.
He was alternately amused and irritated by Tibb’s fibs; touched by his pathetic puppets- the mater and pater; and interested in the slightly disdainful sister. And these were Tibb’s people!
He was startled by violent banging in the lower regions, and rushed downstairs to find Tibbs himself hiding a brass tray and a bottle mop in a cupboard.
“The gong!” Mary explained caustically. Mrs Tibbs led him to this place.
“Do make yourself comfortable, Brown; Pray be quiet at home. I am very glad to see you. And the old man mumbled from the top of the table “Simple life”
Brown determined to make them comfortable and quite at home, so he set himself to humour Tibbs, talk gently to the mater and pater, and sensibly to the sister. He was deaf to a summons from the door.
“Ere, missus! A mun be goin’, so a’ll trouble yer fer thad money. It’ll be sixpence extra I’ve stated till naw- and thur’s mi insterance!”
He was blind to the faults in the service. He managed all parties at once with the greatest dexterity, and considered himself well rewarded, after the meal was over, when Mary allowed him to help her lift things from the table.
Tibb’s, in a terrible rage, at last managed to push him into the drawing room which proved to be no better than the parlour.
Mrs Tibbs followed to beseech Brown to make himself comfortable; and Mr Tibbs senior, called in once more to remind him he preferred the simple life, and then went off to take his gruel in bed.
Tibbs rattled off some music-hall airs on the piano for Brown’s amusement, and, after what seemed a very long time, Mary came in.
She was sorry to be so late, but she had been correcting exercises.
So she had already gone to the “beastly common school” Tibbs relieved his feelings by a crash.
Mary sat down opposite to Brown, and, after frequent attempts, he broke through her reserve and made her talk to him.
When she was interested, she would talk well and vivaciously – now serious and earnest, now laughing and animated.
Brown was charmed and Tibbs was astounded. He left the piano and came to look at her, as if he had never seen her before.
It was late before they realised it. Mary ran off to lock up and turn the lights out, and Brown, feeling a good deal fonder of Tibbs than before went to his room and passed a good hour, stepping from one plush mushroom to another in the pleasant agitation of his mind.
When, at last, he went to bed and to sleep, after violent efforts “to make himself comfortable” it was to dream about the gwounds, place and people,” especially Mary.
In the morning he was awakened by a gentle knock and a squeak at his door. “Hot water, sir!” With a curiosity to see Rebecca, he opened the door a little and saw Tibbs himself stealing down the passage.
“What an uncomfortable life the poor fellow must lead,” he mused. “It must be and kicked the turf. He looked at the outstretched hand. He had never had a friend before.”
“You can trust me Charlie” Brown said.
Tibbs gripped his hand – not waged or fingered – but gripped it hard.
“Thank you, Bwown – I mean Brown – I’ve been a fool, but now I will be a man.”
Then they rushed back over the fields like two schoolboys.
“Mary”, shouted Tibbs, “we’ll dye those socks tomorrow; I’m not going to play anymore. I’m going to work: it’s Brown that’s done it”
Mary stared in amazement, then went to kiss her brother and give her hand to Brown. To express her own thoughts she felt as if she could have loved him for it ; and later, oh! Very much later, of course – she did.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 14th December 1912
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
Clementina eyed the breakfast of salad and oil with manifest disgust.
“Which paper are we following now, father?” she asked.
“The Daily M____” I find,” he said, turning to Clementina’s godmother, and speaking in his precise and affected manner, “I find that the ordinary breakfast of bacon, eggs and coffee is most injurious to the system. In fact, I am surprised that I have not died long ago.”
“We are, really afraid to open the papers nowadays, aunt,” cried Clementina. “Father- in case he should find he is poisoned; and I – in case grass or candles should be recommended.”
“Clementina,” said her father sternly, “desist.”
She desisted, and the meal was finished in silence.
Rex read his letters with all the conscious superiority of a son and heir; and Mrs. Farnell was too spiritless to speak unless she was spoken to. Finally, Mr. Farnell rose from the table and gave Clementina a shilling – her weekly allowance. She blushed as she took it. A shilling a week, and she had aspirations to independence! A shilling a week, and she was almost twenty-one. Her father was a rich man, and gave his son a lavish allowance, in accordance with his theory: “Give the boys free rein and keep the girls well in hand.” “A woman’s place is at home” was one of his constant platitudes.
“Even if there is nothing to do?” Clementina had asked.
“Find something to do, then,” he roared, for his temper was as short as his views, and he “would be master in his own house.” Clementina had tried; but golf was no game for women, and hockey – how dared she mention it? He did not approve of her friends because they laughed loudly and said “ripping” and “topping.” It was most unseemly, and they were forbidden the house. He did not like to see her pouring over books.
Why was she not more like other girls?
“Give me a chance,” said Clementina bitterly, “and I will be.”
But long ago she had realised that no chance would be given her, and she determined to take the law into her own hands. “Six pounds, eight shillings now,” she said to herself as she hugged the shilling in her hands.
“Clementina,” her father’s hard voice broke in on her dreams, “where were you yesterday?”
“In the woods, father.”
“Alone?”
“Yes.”
“Let me impress upon you the fact that you are not to wonder in the country alone and unprotected. Please remember that.”
“But, father, see! I have this with me.” She pulled a small pistol from her pocket.
There was a general cry of horror.
“It is not real,” Clementina hastened to assure them.
“Not real! How dare you – young lady – my daughter – stoop to frighten tramps with a toy pistol?”
“If I don’t frighten them, they’ll frighten me,” she cried. “And father, I don’t see why I should be denied the fields and the fresh air because no one will go with me.”
“You will not go again,” her father said firmly.
“Only two more weeks! Two more weeks,” murmured Clementina, to keep back the angry words.
She went to her hated little studio, where her father insisted that she should paint pictures of the “light and shade” type. From the window she could see him pacing the grass plot in the garden below. His hands were clasped behind and his head was well thrown back; he threw proud glances from side to side.
“I am monarch of all I survey,” quoted Clementina, and then hated herself for it.
“But he has not been fair to me,” she insisted to herself. “He hasn’t been fair, and I am not doing wrong.”
Her godmother came in to her.
“Aunt, I am sorry you are going to-day,” said the girl.
“You are not looking very well or very happy, child,” said her aunt.
“I am quite well,” Clementina said, surprised.
“Are you happy?” asked her aunt, again.
Clementina turned and saw sympathy in her godmother’s eyes. She hesitated, and then said, vehemently,
“I am not free. I am too cooped up to be happy.
“I understand. Tell me what you are going to do.”
Clementina was glad that her godmother took it for granted that she was going to do something.
“I shall be twenty-one in a fortnight, aunt, and then I shall be as free to do as I like. I have saved six pounds and eight shillings, and on my birthday I leave this house.”
“Where will you go?”
“I have got a place as assistant mistress in a small girls’ school. I wanted a degree, you know, aunt. You can do so much more with a degree. Oh, there is a great deal to do, and I want to help!”
“What do you mean?” asked her aunt.
“Don’t laugh,” said Clementina “when I tell you that I used to spend hours trying to hammer out epigrams on men. Have you ever read those pages of epigrams on women in almost every paper? Have you? And didn’t you feel on fire with indignation? I spent hours trying to do it, but I had no talent, and now I have found a better way, aunt. I’ll try help to teach us to be perfectly proof against them. That’s the best way to avenge the insults that have been heaped on women in books and in life. How I hate the men who wrote them!”
“This is only an outlet for your cooped-up energy, Clementina, child,” remarked her aunt.
“That as may be, but all this is very serious to me. I know a girl, aunt, who was driven to marry a man she did not love, because she had no liberty at home.”
“I don’t suppose you would do that.”
“No! I know better than to fly from this bondage to a worse.”
“Ah! Clementina,” said her aunt. “You have a great deal to learn.”
“I know I have,” humbly, “I know I have. But, aunt, do you blame me for striking out for myself? I want to be free. I want to live – I want to help. I have never been anything in this house. They will not let me be of any use. Oh! I’m cramped.”
“I know; I have often thought so,” said her godmother. “I think you can go under the circumstances. Good luck, child. You will have to fight hard. The world seems very cruel to girls of your age. I remember thinking so. But you have grit, Clem dear, and will come through all right.” She smiled into Clementina’s excited eyes. “You are a strange child,” she said, and kissed her good-bye.
Clementina lived through the next fortnight in a fever of excitement. It made her colour and her eyes as brilliant as they might have been were she a happy, careless girl. Her brother began to think her pretty enough to go out with him. “I’ll take you to the dance’s next winter, Clem,” he said, condescendingly, if you won’t disgrace yourself and me.”
“I don’t think I will risk it, thanks,” said Clementina, sweetly.
“Oh! come, you’re not as bad as all that,” he consoled her.
“Thank you. You are very generous, but you might regret it.”
“Oh, all right,” he said, in a huff.
The night before her birthday Clementina packed her belongings, emptied the contents of her old tin money-box into her purse, and saw that everything was in readiness. The next morning she went down to breakfast feeling decidedly nervous.
Her parents kissed her.
“I have refitted your studio, Clementina,” said her father, and your mother has some books and pictures for you. Many happy returns.” He dismissed the subject with a wave of his hand.
“Thank you, father,” she said, with a gulp.
“I must get it over,” she thought.
A letter lay on her plate. She picked it up, and played nervously with it, without opening it. Then she made a bold plunge.
“Father,” she began, in a clear voice, “I am twenty-one to-day. I am of age now – and free.”
“Free?” he cried astounded.
“Yes,” she went on firmly. “I can do as I like now; and I want to go and earn my own living.”
“What?” he roared.
She repeated it.
“How dare you? How dare you?” he cried, livid with rage. “If you ever leave this house, you never enter it again as long as you live.”
“Mother!” cried the girl, throwing out her arms in passionate appeal.
“I have no sympathy with you,” said her mother, coldly.
“Oh, no! no!” cried Clementina, covering her face with her hands.
“You never enter this house again,” repeated her father.
“You do not regret it more than I,” she said, quiet now.
“Insolent!” he roared.
“I must go,” she said.
“Where is your money?”
“I have saved every penny you have given me since I left school. It comes to six pounds and eight shillings.”
He became suddenly very calm, and, leaning forward, said slowly, “You shall not take one thing out of this house. I have paid for your clothes. You ungrateful, shameful child, you shall not take any away. You shall stay here, and not another penny shall you have to save.”
Clementina gave a great cry but was still after that. If she let the flood of tears come, he would taunt her with being a weak, helpless woman. He had done it before, but he should never do it again. Her burning eyes fell on the letter in her hand. Her god-mother’s writing! she tore it open while they watched her. There was a note. She scanned it. “You must let me help …… would rather give you the money now than when I die ….. then it may be too late to be of any use to you. Take this …..”
She gave another cry when she saw a cheque for £100.
“Free!” she cried, “Free, in spite of all! Free! Oh!” She turned her brilliant eyes upon her father, and he shrank from the strange expression in them. What had he done to raise such a look in the eyes of his own child? He asked himself, and dared not answer.
“I shall send money for my things,” she said, “every penny. I must go; but I shall always be ready to come back when you can forgive me.”
She was gone and did not hear the hoarse bitter cry that broke from her father’s lips.
Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, Saturday 17th May, 1913
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
Bella Vista; sea ft; coq; amus’ts; comf; bedr’ms, pte and pub, did not appeal to us. But Glan-y-mor was different. To begin with, we like the name. “Glan-y-mor,” “Bal-y-veg,” “Tall-y-rand” ; names like that are attractive.
“A roomy farmhouse situated directly on the beach; beautiful country round, combined with delights of sea. One party of visitors only accommodated at one time; 6gs weekly.” We read this, and it sounded inviting – all except the part about the six guineas. However, we sent for particulars. The landlady seemed to be a most superior person, for she wrote: “My visitors have always been drawn from the highest walks of life.” (We said afterwards it was a pity they had ever strayed from their path.) I should like to know that your connections are good. If so, it shall be my highest privilege and delight to minister to your every wish.” We felt that such caution was estimable on the part of the landlady of Glan-y-mor,” and we wrote to assure her as to our connections.
On a day in August we travelled down, smiling in anticipation, to the nook-shotten little village of T___. A sort of char-a-banc – met us at the station.
Some of us said afterwards that they felt rather sick and suspicious when they saw it; but the rest of us squashed them for pretending to clairvoyance. We all know quite well that we mounted that char-a-banc and rolled about in it like a few pills in a box – perfectly happy until we reached the sea shore, where there were two houses. One was big and white and nice, and we did not look at the other.
“Our place looks fine,” said one.
“The Vicarage,” said the driver, pointing to the big white house with his whip.
Then we looked at the other.
Listen! It was like one of those houses you draw when you’re little – before you get to putting in a second storey. It was small and low and red, with a grey roof squashing out all the light from the two ground floor windows. It was like this:
-But worse; and it was labelled “teas,” or we should have taken it for a cow-shed. There it was, plumped down right among the pedals, without any garden or railing. The only timber in sight was a green bench with “Glan-y-mor” painted brightly on it.
I am not going to describe our emotions. Some cried; some laughed horrid laughter; the more self-controlled of us walked round the place in silent horror until we were lured in by the smiling landlady.
We have no idea how we conducted ourselves during the welcoming. We think now that we that we stared dully and muttered, “Six guineas! Six guineas! Every week for a month.” But, going upstairs, we all bumped our heads, and that seemed to bring us to our senses. We all stood – as far as the roof would let us – in the first room we came to and groaned unanimously.
It happened that a little wind blew just then – the fifty odd papers on the walls bulged out like filled sails, and plaster rattled down behind like the scurrying of a thousand rats.
“What will it be in a storm?” we moaned and fell to punching the bulges to relieve our feelings, until we heard the landlady coming.
We were all afraid of that landlady as soon as she smiled; we felt different, then, from the rest of mankind, especially those who trod the highest walks of life.
After a while, we found enough courage to complain about the “TEAS” placard. But our mild ventures were met at the outset by such indignation at the “very idea of depriving a decayed gentlewoman of her means of subsistence” that we apologized abjectly, and slunk depressed to bed – feather bed!. There we stifled – flapped in on every side by restless wallpapers; the moon in our eyes; for the skylights boasted no blinds.
We rose dispirited at dawn, and dipped in the sea – where the stones would let us. Coming back, we saw three of us head and shoulders out of the three several skylights, completing their toilet. This happened every morning.
The landlady had hung the fireplaces over with plush, so on wet days – and they were many – we were obliged to huddle round an evil-smelling oilstove, with nothing to do but stare at the pressed seaweed in frames, and two black pot dogs eternally grinning on wool mats.
On fine days large parties of roysterers came in the char-a-banc for teas. They laughed and talked and played at rounders before our windows – filled our sea with orange-peel and paper-bags.
Before we had been there two days we were told that we had devoured forty eggs. The cheekiest of us demanded an outward and visible sign of eggs in the future; but the landlady smiled and we crumpled up altogether, and at once.
The thought of it makes me too dejected to continue, it is enough to say that we went back home after paying twenty-four guineas for a week.
How that landlady smiled!
Just remember this, though, “One may smile and smile, and still be a villain.” Shakespeare knew that, and so do we. And for heaven’s sake, or, rather, your own, go and look before you leap
into a place like “Glan-y-mor.”
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 27th September 1913
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
The Private Secretary
Beggars Belief Collective delivering a rehearsed reading of The Private Secretary at Blackburn Central Library, Saturday 7th June, 2025, (c) Suzana Matoh
“Wanted, a private secretary, by a lady of artistic temperament. Apply, personally, at Carlton, etc.”
“Carlton” proved to be a red brick villa, with Tudor additions, where Noel Ware was admitted for consideration. She was ushered into a room where the above-mentioned artistic temperament was but too painfully obvious. There was an extraordinary number of “petits objects,” as the French would vaguely and aptly call them; “petits objects” in wood – tables, stands, desks, bookcases, racks – those not scorched hideously in the process known as “poker work,” were carved into knobs and twists, or riddled by fretwork. More “petit objects” in plush, satin, muslin, daubed with paint inches thick; more “petit objects” again on the walls, that might be pictures, in which the signature only was distinguishable. And all were the handiwork of the incredibly fat little person who now paused on the threshold; she paused, silent, to allow for the effects of her entrance. It was well she did. Noel needed time to comprehend the grandeur of the crimson plush robe, decorated down the front with lumps of turquoise; the further lumps swinging on long chains, like clock pendulums, from the ears; the huge hat over which a fountain of ostrich feathers played.
“Sit down,” said the lady of artistic temperament, advancing.
“Are you competent to fill this post, or are you not?”
“Perhaps if you told me something about it I should be able to answer you,” said Noel. She felt nothing but amusement at having slighted on what promised to be such a ludicrous character. Moreover, this was to be her first step towards independence, and she determined that it should not be her fault if she was unsuccessful in her application.
It was in this frame of mind, then, that she answered several insolent questions; and finally gained her end. Before night she was installed at Carlton.
“You must come here to-day” Mrs. Merritt her employers had said. “I wish you to write a letter to order them to put in “Carlton Towers” on the gates, instead of Carlton. I want it doing in gold, too.”
Noel had promised herself amusement, but there was a good deal of unlooked for unpleasantness in store. It began that very evening.
When on her way to the dining room she heard a voice drawl:
“but I say, mater, is she going to dine with us; by Jove, why should she, I ask you? It’s dammed bad form, I swear it is. What if we had some people dining with us? It would be dammed awkward. I swear it would. What’s a private secretary; By Jove, she’s paid for it.”
At this juncture Noel came into the room, with a high colour and a curled lip, to find in the speaker a thin young man, with colourless hair and a face to match, “like a weed grown in the cellar” she mentally decided.
On the introduction he exclaimed: By Jove, you’re just like Popsi Toots, who was at the Hip last week. I swear you are.” And this seemed to reconcile him to her dining with him.
She turned from him, in disgust, to the master of the house, who was much too nervous to say anything but “This soup is very good, Maria.” “Maria this fish is very good,” and so on throughout the meal.
His wife, whom Noel had already christened the “Dilettante,” was too absorbed with herself to take any notice of anyone else. She gazed continually at her own pictures, screwing up her eyes to observe them in ball lights, and even going so far as to test the perspective with a fork or anything that came to hand.
The son and heir, whose name was Marmaduke, babbled aimlessly, so that Noel had plenty of time to think.
“I have noticed,” she said to herself, “that when the wife is a crank, the husband is always meek. Now does that prove that if the woman asserts herself, the man gives in.”
She was a serious young person, and had “theories.” People were surprised. She was so pretty.
“That son is just the sort of man I detest,” she went on thinking. “He thinks he is a rake; he has made himself one on principle. What a drab, unwholesome thing he is, I don’t think he ever has a real wash. I should say he “dry cleans.” None of them have the slightest idea of manners, and they think I am “some sort of underservant.”
But she smiled at the notion: so brilliantly, indeed, that Marmaduke was moved to remark again on her likeness to “Popsie.”
Noel felt anything but pleased by this resemblance, since it made him hang about, when, after dinner, the Dilettante, seated in a chair like a throne, dictated a letter to her new secretary. He contradicted, and interrupted, and insisted in looking over her shoulder, as she wrote. He proved to be more annoying still as time went on. He took to lolling about in the gaudy room where Noel worked.
“Works a bore. I swear it is,” he said one day.
“And how do you know that,” asked Noel.
“I work, by Jove, I do. Did you think I didn’t? he said.
“I have not seen any evidences of it since I came,” she explained.
“By Jove, that’s just like these new fangled girls you find all over the place now. They take their bit of typewriting so seriously. Of course they couldn’t do what we do.”
“Oh,” remarked Noel with a dangerous blush. “And what do you do?”
“Oh! I’m in cotton.”
“Cotton-wool?” she flashed.
“oh, no. Cotton isn’t the same as cotton-wool,” he explained for the benefit of feminine ignorance. It is different – for one thing, it’s a deuced slight harder. I swear it is. Every one’s in cotton nowadays, he continued, stoking his upper lip, and assuming an expression of insufferable conceit. “That is, everyone worth knowing. There’s a rush. I swear there is.”
“Yes,” said Noel. “Everyone without brains and without breeding is put into cotton nowadays. As if this generation of silly young things can carry on the best industry in the world – and one that has needed men of grit and character to build it up and keep it on.”
“By Jove, you speak so quickly I can’t hear what you say. But you do look jolly ripping when you go red like that! You’re prettier than Popsie. I swear you are. But she’s more agreeable. You don’t need to be so distant with a chap. What do you say to doing a theatre, tonight?”
Noel indignantly refused.
“This is the price one has to pay for independence,” she said, as she escaped him. “It is surprising how few men can leave a girl alone.”
“Lor! By Jove,” said Marmaduke gallantly.
“You jolly well know you don’t want to be left alone,” which is a fatuous remark often heard.
He was not to be repressed by her evident annoyance, and not long afterwards seized the opportunity to renew the tete-a-tete, while the Dilettante was walking in the garden with her monkey.
“by Jove,” he began as usual, “you do look ripping. You’re the rippingest girl I ever saw. I swear you are. And, I say, I’d better be quick before the mater comes back, I’ve taken an awful fancy to you – enough to marry you. I swear I have. I don’t mind a hang about you having to earn your own living. I did at first.” This is a burst of confidence. “But Jones has gone and married a schoolmistress, and a private secretary is ever so much better. Sounds it anyway. Oh! I say, I do want to marry you. I swear I do.”
Noel listened in the greatest amazement to this generous outburst. She stood up and faced him with flaming cheeks.
“You mean to say you are asking me to marry you?” she asked, a little breathlessly.
“I swear I am,” said he, delighted that she should realise to the full his condescension. He came hatefully near.
“Stand back! How dare you touch me,” she cried.
“By Jove, why not, I ask you. You’re surely not going to refuse me. By Jove, you can’t expect such a chance again.”
“I hope I shall never be insulted again by such a “chance,” as you call it,” she cried.
“Do you mean to say you won’t have me ,” he cried, his drab face flushing and his lip quivering with rage.
“Naturally,” said Noel.
“Naturally! There’s nothing natural in it! By Jove, I jolly well wish I’d not asked you. A gentleman born and bred asks a girl who works for her living to marry him and she say’s it is an insult. I wish I had not lowered myself to ask you. I swear I do. I’ll jolly well tell the mater about this, and you’ll see what she has to say.”
Noel’s angry retort was checked by the entrance of the Dilettante.
“What’s this? What’s this? She asked.
“I’ve been asking her to marry me, mater” put in Marmaduke, and she’d abusing me like mad for it.”
The apoplectic hue of the Dilettante’s complexion deepened perceptibly; her rage choked her; after several attempts she to speak she burst out.
“You shall never marry my son; You shall never marry my son; You shall never marry my son,” and would have said it many more times had Noel not interrupted.
“I should think not indeed.”
“What,” cried the Dilettante. “You have refused him! How dare you refuse him. How dare you. I have seen the attempts you have made on my son ever since you came into my house. Now, you can go. Leave my house.”
“Silence Maria,” cried another voice. Mr. Merritt stood in the room. He was transformed, his face, hitherto so weakly, was stern.
“Miss Ware, I apologise for the unpardonable behavior of my wife and son. I am sincerely sorry that you should have received such treatment in my house.”
“But John – “cried his wife.
“Be quiet, Maria,” he commanded sternly, and she obeyed.
“Miss Ware,” he continued, “I need a secretary at my offices – should be glad if you would take my affairs to hand. You will find more scope for your abilities down there. I have intended to ask you for some time back; and will you do me the honour to remain as my guest here until you find rooms that please you?.”
Noel smiled again. “Thank you for your offer,” she said. “The first I am delighted to accept; but for the second. I think I will go to my brother, Colonel Ware, who lives quite near.”
There was a strange silence then.
At last the Dilettante spoke.
“Colonel Ware your brother?”
“Your brother!” echoed Marmaduke, his mouth dropping open.
“My brother,” said Noel, looking from one to the other in surprise.
“Oh, if I had only known.” Cried the Dilettante. “Marmaduke, you must apologise. I must apologise. We all must apologise. Oh! Let us apologise! Oh Miss Ware, my dear Miss Ware, why did you not tell us?”
“What difference does it make?” she asked.
The Dilettante was nonplussed at that; she could not answer.
“You must stay with us, dear Miss Ware.” Was all she could say.
“I shall most certainly not,” said Noel. “You saw nothing unjust or illbred in your treatment of a girl working for her living. I do not choose to accept a change of attitude because you have discovered that I am of good social standing. Mr Merritt, at what time shall I be at your office in the morning?”
“I should not like to dictate –“began the little man, nervous once more.
“Please treat me as you would otherwise have done,” implored Noel. “I would infinitely rather be considered as a girl who tries to justify her existence by working, than as one who can have all she wants without lifting a finger to get it.”
“Ten o’clock, then please.” He held out his hand.
Noel shook it warmly. She held hers out to Marmaduke, but he was sulking, and ignored it. “Jolly low down trick, I swear it is,” he muttered.
The Dilettante grasped at the offered hand, however, with both her own fat ones.
“Oh! Do you think I might call at the Grange now you are there, Miss Ware? I have always wanted to know the Wares, and if you would give me an invitation, I should be so grateful.”
Noel was disgusted.
“My brother sees very few people,” she said.
“But I may call,” insisted the Dilettante.
“If you choose,” said Noel, and left them.
The Blackburn Weekly Telegraph, 16th May 1914
Transcribed by Philip Crompton
Last #36 (Gly-y-Mor)
