Aileen Aroon, A Memoir

house,though certainly not a mansion; but here are gardens and lawn andpaddock, kennels for dogs, home for cats, and aviaries for birds, many ashady nook in which to hang a hammock in the summer months, and a gardenwigwam, which makes a cool study even in hot weather, bedraped as it isin evergreens, and looks a cosy wee room in winter, when the fire islighted and the curtains are drawn. "Ah! Gordon," dear old Frank usedto say--and there was probably a grain of truth in the remark--"there issomething about the quiet contented life you lead in your cottage, withits pleasant surroundings, that reminds me forcibly of the idyllicexistence of your favourite bard, Horace, in his home by the banks ofthe Anio.

  "`Beatus ille qui procul negotiis, Ut prisca gens mortalium, Patenta rure bubus exercet suis Solutus omni fenore, Neque excitatur classico miles truci Neque horret iratum mare.'"

  "True, Frank," I replied, "at sea I often thought I would dearly love acountry life. My ambition--and I believe I represent quite a largemajority of my class--used to be, that one day I might be able to retireon a comfortable allowance--half-pay, for instance--take a house with amorsel of land, and keep a cow and a pony, and go in for rearingpoultry, fruit, and all that sort of thing. Such was my dream.

  "There were six of us in our mess in the saucy little `Pen-gun.'

  "It was hot out there on the East Coast of Africa, where we werestationed, and we did our best to make it hotter--for the dhows which wecaptured, at all events, because we burned them. Nearly all day, andevery day, we were in chase, mostly of slave dhows, but sometimes ofjolly three-masters.

  "Away out in the broad channel of the blue Mozambique, with never acloud in the sky, nor a ripple on the ocean's breast, tearing along atthe rate of twelve knots an hour, with the chase two miles ahead, andhappy in the thoughts of quite a haul of prize-money, it wasn't half badfun, I can assure you. Then we could whistle `A sailor's life is thelife for me,' and feel the mariner all over.

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  "But, when the chase turned out to be no prize, but only a legitimatetrader, when the night closed in dark and stormy, with a roaring windand a chopping sea, then, it must be confessed, things did not lookquite so much _couleur de rose_, dot a mariner's life so merry-o!

  "On nights like these, when the fiddles were shipped across the table tokeep things straight--for a lively lass was the saucy `Pen-gun,' andthought no more of breaking half-a-dozen wine-glasses, than she did ofgoing stem first in under a wave she was too lazy to mount--when thefiddles were shipped, when we had wedged ourselves into all sorts ofcorners, so as we shouldn't slip about and fall, when the steward hadbrought the coffee and the biscuits called ships', then it was our wontto sit and sip and talk and build our castles in the air.

  "`It's all very fine,' one of us would say, `to talk of the pleasures ofa sailor's life, it's all very well in songs; but, if I could only geton shore now, on retired pay--'

  "`Why, what would you do?'--a chorus.

  "`Why, go in for the wine trade like a shot,' from the first speaker.`That's the way to make money. Derogatory, is it? Well, I don't seeit; I'd take to tea--'

  "Chorus again: `Oh! come, I say!'

  "Some one, more seriously and thoughtfully: `No; but wouldn't you liketo be a farmer?' The ship kicks, a green sea breaks over her. We areused to it, but don't like it, even although we do take the cigars fromour lips, as we complacently view the water pouring down the hatchwayand rising around our chairs' legs.

  "`A farmer, you know, somewhere in the midland counties; green fieldsand lowing kine; a nice stream, meandering--no not meandering, but--

  "`Chattering over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, Bubbling into eddying bays. Babbling o'er the pebbles; Winding about, and in and out, With here a blossom sailing, And here and there a lusty trout, And here and there a grayling.'

  "`Yes,' from another fellow, `and of course a comfortable house of solidEnglish masonry, and hounds not very far off, so as one could cut awayto a hunt whenever he liked.'

  "`And of course balls and parties, and a good dinner _every_ day.'

  "`And picnics often, and the seaside in season, and shooting all theyear round.'

  "`And I'd go in for bees.'

  "`Oh! yes, I think every fellow would go in for bees.'

  "`And have a field of Scottish heather planted on purpose for them:fancy how nice that would look in summer!'

  "`And I'd have a rose garden.'

  "`Certainly; nothing could be done without a rose garden.'

  "`Then one could go in for poultry, and grow one's own eggs.'

  "`Hear the fellow!--fancy _growing_ eggs!'

  "`Well, lay them, then--it's all the same. I'm not so green as toimagine eggs grow on trees.'

  "`And think of the fruit one might have.'

  "`And the mushroom beds.'

  "`And brew one's own beer and cider.'

  "`And of course one could go in for dogs.'

  "`Oh! la! yes--have them all about the place. Elegant Irish setters,dainty greyhounds, cobby wee fox-terriers, a noble Newfoundland or two,and a princely bloodhound at each side of the hall-door.'

  "`That's the style!'

  "`Now, give us a song, Pelham!'

  "`What shall it be--Dibdin?'

  "`No, Pelham, give us, "Sweet Jessie, the Flower o' Dumblane," orsomething in that style. Let us fancy we are farmers. Doesn't shepitch and roll, though! Dibdin and Russell are all very well on shore,or sitting under an awning in fine weather when homeward bound. We'renot homeward bound--worse luck!--so heave round with the "Flower o'Dumblane."'

  "My dream has in some measure been fulfilled, my good friend Frank; Ican sit now under my own vine and my own fig-tree, but still look backwith a certain degree of pleasure to many a night spent on board thatheaving, pitching, saucy, wee ship."

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  Our new home nestles among trees not far from a very primitive wee townindeed. We have only to descend along the hill-side through thepine-trees, wind some way round the knoll, and there at our feet lies_our_ village--Fernydale, to wit. It might just as well be calledSleepy Hollow, such a dreamy little spot it is. Not very far from agreat line of rails--just far enough to subdue the roar of the trains,that night and day go whirling past in a drowsy monotone, like thedistant sound of falling water. Everything and everybody about ourlittle village looks quiet and drowsy; the little church itself, thatnestles among the wealth of foliage, looks the picture of drowsiness,and the very smoke seems as if it preferred lingering in Fernydale toascending upwards and joining the clouds. We have a mill here--oh! sucha drowsy old mill! No one was ever known to be able to pass that millwithout nodding. Intoxicated lieges, who have lain down to restopposite that mill, have been known to sleep the sleep that knows nowaking; and if at any time you stop your horse for a moment on the road,while you talk to the miller, the animal soon begins to nod; and henods, and nods, and nid-nid-nods, and finally goes to sleep entirely,and it takes no end of trouble to start him off again.

  Our very birds are drowsy. The larks don't care to sing a bit more thansuffices for conjugal felicity, and the starlings are constantlytumbling down our bedroom chimney, and making such a row that we thinkthe burglars have come.

  The bees are drowsy; they don't gather honey with any degree ofactivity; they don't seem to care whether they gather it or not. Theyare often too lazy to fly back to hive, and don't go home till morning;and if you were to take a walk along our road at early dawn--say 11:45a.m.--you would often find these bees sitting limp-winged and halfasleep on fragrant thistle-tops, and if you poked at them with a stalkof hay, and tried to reason with them, they would just lift one lazyfore-leg and beckon you off, as much as to say, peevishly--

  "Oh! what was I born for? _Can't_ you leave a poor fellow alone? Whatdo ye come pottering around here at midnight for?"

  Such is the hum-drum drowsiness of little Fernydale.
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  But bonny is our cottage in spring and summer, when the pink-eyedchestnuts are all ablaze at the foot of the lawn, when flowers bloomwhite on the scented rowans, when the yellow gorse on the knoll beyondglints through the green of the trees, when the merlin sings among thedrooping limes, and the croodling pigeons make soft-eyed love on theeaves; and there is beauty about it, too, even in winter, when the worldis robed in snow, when the leafless branches point to leaden skies, andthe robin, tired of his sweet little song, taps on the panes with histiny bill, for the crumbs he has never to ask for in vain.

  It was one winter's evening in the year