Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England
Born to WanderA Boy's Book of Nomadic AdventuresBy Gordon StablesIllustrations by W. CheshirePublished by S.W. Partridge and Co., 9 Paternoster Row, London.
Born to Wander, by Gordon Stables.
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________________________________________________________________________BORN TO WANDER, BY GORDON STABLES.
Book 1--CHAPTER ONE.
GRAYLING HOUSE, AND THE WILDERY AROUND IT.
"It was, I ween, a lovely spot of ground, Half-prankt with spring with sommer half imbrowned."
Scene: An old baronial hall, showing grey over the woods near to thebanks of a tributary of the silvery Tweed.
It wasn't the month for the Michaelmas daisies, for it was November.
And when the chrysanthemums opened their great eyes, and turned theirfaces upwards to meet the light, they felt quite put about to see thoseflowers still in bloom. They would have been angry, but it is not inthe nature of our garden, or indeed of our wild flora and hedgerow pets,to be so. For flowers are ever meek, albeit they are lovely, andmethinks that meekness and beauty, hand in hand, are inexpressiblycharming.
No, the chrysanthemums were not angry, but they could not help saying toeach other--
"Why have the Michaelmas daisies not gone to sleep? Is not their timegone by, and is not this our month in which to bloom and beautify thegarden landscape?"
Little Effie came trotting round. It was quite early yet. The sun hadjust got high enough to peep over the almost leafless linden trees. Andwherever his beams fell on bush or brake or fern, he melted thehoar-frost, and resolved it into drops of dew, in each of which aminiature rainbow might have been seen. But round at the back of thebig stone mansion, where its shadow fell athwart the old-fashionedterraced lawn, the hoar-frost still lay thick and fast.
Out from among the shrubbery somewhere came Effie Lyle. She might, aslikely as not, have dropped out of a yew tree for anything any one knewto the contrary.
She stood for a moment looking up at the blue sky,--her own eyes werequite as blue,--her pretty lips half-parted in a smile, and her goldenhair somewhat dishevelled, afloat on her shoulders; as fresh and pure asthe morning itself she was, the one thing that had been wanting tocomplete the beauty of the wildery in which she stood.
Effie glanced down at the chrysanthemums with love and admiration, atthe pure white ones, and the pink-and-white, and the crimson, and thebright, bright yellow; she gently smoothed their gorgeous petals thatlooked so like nodding plumes.
"I love you all," she cried, "and I am going to kiss the Michaelmasdaisies!"
But these grew on such long, long stalks--for they had to creep high tomeet the sun--that Effie had to stand on tiptoe, and bend down theirmauve clusters to her face.
A momentary sadness crept over her, because one of her pet flowers hadleft a drop of dew on her cheek.
"Why are my darlings crying?" she said. "Oh, I know!" she added, aftera second's thought. "Because they soon must die. The wicked frost willkill my pets, and then--oh yes, then, I'll have the chrysanthemums tolove."
An additional ray of sunshine seemed to fall over these flowers when shesaid this. But a chill crept over the daisies, and their petals beganto fold, as fold the wings of insects when night begins to fall.
The gardens around Grayling House were indeed a wildery, yet not awilderness. It was the pleasure of their owner to let all growingthings have a good deal of their own way. For he loved nature even morethan art. So in summer time the big lawn that stretched down as far asthe quiet river's bank--where the trailing willows kissed the water, andthe splendidly bedecked kingfishers darted in and out from sunshine andshade--was carpeted with flowers, buttercups and daisies and noddingplumes of grasses, and clover white and red. Yet the sun had suchaccess to this lawn, despite the bordering trees, that those wild thingsnever grew high, but spread and spread, and intertwined, as if theyreally loved each other, and would not be parted for the world. Afavourite lawn this for bees of every size and colour, and for athousand strangely-shaped and gaudily-coloured beetles, which on cloudydays were content to climb up and down the grass stems and take exerciseas acrobats do, but who, when the sun burst out, opened the littlecupboards on their shoulders, where their wings had been carefullystowed away from the wet, unfolded these gauzy appendages, and flew awayin search of wild adventures.
There were paths through this wildery that seemed to lead nowhere, andas often as not made pretence of taking you straight back towards thehouse again, but landed you at last perhaps in a greenwood glade, withbroad-leaved sycamores, and elms around, in which blackbirds fluted inspring, thrushes piped, and the chaffinch tried to drown the notes ofevery other bird with his mad merry melody. And here perhaps was arockery, with a fountain playing and a streamlet trickling awayriverwards, through the greenest of grass. On this rockery dwelt fernsthat loved moisture, and creeping saxifrages, with pretty flowerets ofdeepest crimson, but not a bit bigger than a bee's head.
Had you wished to return from this delightful lonesome glade--and sooneror later you would be sure to wish to go back, notwithstanding itsbeauty--you would probably have taken a wrong turning, and after a whilefound yourself in a rose-covered, heather-roofed, rustic summer-house,with a little window opening over the river itself, and seats andlounges inside.
Here, on a summer's day, if possessed of a nice book, you would havefound it a pleasure indeed to enjoy a rest. Not that you would haveread much, had the book been ever so nice, for as soon as you had gotfairly settled, and animated nature around you had got used to yourpresence, there would have been quite a deal to watch and wonder at.Bright-eyed birds, who had sung in the boughs till their throats weredry, would have come down to slake their thirst and bathe and plash inthe sandy-bottomed shallows, scaring the gladsome minnows away intodeeper, darker water, where under the weeds lived fate in the shape of agruesome pike, with terrible teeth and eyes that never closed. Or whileyou were trying to read, a rabbit or even a hare would come hoppingalong, and stand up to stare at you. A weasel would sneak past bent onno good. A beautiful squirrel would leap to the ground, and run aroundon the moss, with his wondrous tail like a train behind him. Bees andbeetles would go droning past, or come in by the door, and fly outthrough the open window, making the great spider that had his web in thecorner move his horizontal jaws in hungry expectancy. Meanwhile everynow and then a glad fish would leap up and ripple the stream, and thestream itself would keep on chatter-chattering, and telling the nodding,listening trees such a long story in so drowsy a monotone, about whereit had been, and where it was going, and what it had seen, thatpresently you would get listening to the story yourself, and noddinglike the trees till the book would drop out of your grasp, and _you_would be at the back of the north wind.
When you wakened at last, you would be unable for a time to tell whereyou were, till on looking out you saw the trees again, and the greenmoss, with the squirrel on it still seeming to look for something, andthe tall crimson foxgloves smiling at you through the greenery of ferns;then you would remember that you had fallen asleep while trying to readon a summer's day in a cosy, drowsy summer cot by the banks of one ofthe most lovely streams that roll their waters into the silvery Tweed.
But at the time our story opens autumn, not summer, was reigning in thelovely wildery round Grayling House.
The leaves were nearly all gone off the trees, except from the oaks,those sturdiest children of our soil. Their leaves were withered andyellow, but would remain on for months to come. The oak and the beecha
re the wisest of all our broad-leaved trees; they put not forth theirgreen leaves till spring sunshine has warmed the air, and long after thepowdery snow has begun to fall, and other trees are bare and shiveringin the blast, they still are clothed in their weather-stained garmentsof leaves.
Effie stooped once more to kiss and caress the chrysanthemums, then shehurried away, because she had heard her brother's voice calling,--
"Effie, Effie, Effie!"
"Coming, Leonard--coming--coming--coming!" was Effie's reply, as she ranround through the shrubbery to the terraced lawn behind.
"Come and see me jump from winter into spring," cried Leonard, making abound like a young antelope right off the lowest terrace, still whiteand crisp with frost, to the lawn where the grass was wet with dew, andgreen.
"Oh, Leonardie, Leonardie!" said Effie, pouting with her rosy lips, "whyso cruel as to call me away from my flowers to see you jump?"
"_You_