"Churl, churl; chok, wee, cho!" This in a low and beautiful key; then higher and more joyful, "Wheedle, wheedle, wheedle; wheety, wheety, wheety; chokee, okee, okee-whee!"

Answering each other all the livelong night, bursting into song at intervals all the day, when, we wondered, did they sleep? Did they take it in turns to make night and day melodious, keeping watches like the sailors at sea? We thought the song of the mavis so tame now; but c.o.c.k-robin's had not lost its charm, just as the dear old simple "lilts"

of bonnie Scotland, or the sadder ditties of the Green Isle, never pall on our ear, love we ever so well the lays of sunny Italy.

As the summer waned apace, and the leaves on the chestnuts changed to a darker, hardier green, the nightingales ceased their song; but, somehow, we never missed them much, there were so many other songsters. We used to wonder how many different sorts of birds found shelter in those twin chestnuts, apart from the bickering sparrows, who colonised it; apart from the merle and thrush, who merely came home to roost; apart from the starling, who was continually having quarrels with his wife about something or other; and apart from the noisy jackdaw, who was such an argumentative fellow, and made himself such a general nuisance that it always ended in his being forcibly ejected.

Robin was invariably the first to awake in the morning. As the first faint tinge of dawning day began to broaden in the east, he shook the dew from his wings, and gave vent to a little peevish twitter. Then he would hop down from the tree, perch on the gate, and begin his sweet wee song: "Twitter, twitter, twee!" We used to wonder if it really was a song of praise to Him who maketh the sun to rise and gladden all the earth.

"Twitter, twitter, twee!" Little birdies are so happy, and awake every morning as fresh and joyous as innocent children.

"Twitter, twitter, twitter, twee!" went the song for fully half an hour, till it was so light that even the lazy sparrows began to awake, and squabble, and scold, and fight; for you must know that sparrows hold about the same social rank in the feathered creation, that the dwellers around Billingsgate do among human beings.

Then there would be such a chorus of squabbling from the big trees, that poor robin had to give up singing in disgust, and come down to have his breakfast.

"Hullo!" he would cry, addressing a humble-bee, who with his wings all bedraggled in dew, was slowly moving across the gravel, thinking the sun would soon rise and dry him--for poor bees often do stay too long on thistles at night, get drugged with the sweet-scented ambrosia, and are unable to get home till morning--"Hullo!" robin would say; "do you know you're wanted?"

The poor bee would hold up one arm in mute appeal.

"Keep down your hands," robin would say; "I'll do it ever so gently;"

and off the bee's head would go in a twinkling. Then robin would eye his victim till the sting ceased to work out and in, then quietly swallow it. This, with an earthworm or two, and a green caterpillar by way of relish, washed down with a bill-full of water from a little pool in a cabbage-leaf, would form robin's breakfast; then away he would fly to the woods, where he could sing all day in peace.

And so the summer sped away in that quiet spot, and anon the fields were all ablaze with the golden harvest, and the st.u.r.dy leaves of our chestnut-trees turned yellow and brown, and the great nuts came tumbling down in a steady cannonade each time the wind shook the branches. And the twin chestnuts, perhaps, looked more lovely now than ever they had looked--they had borrowed the tints of the autumn sunset; yet their very beauty told us now that the end was not far away.

The wind of a night now moved the branches with a harsher, drier rustling, like the sound of breaking waves or falling water, and we often used to dream we were away at sea, tossed up and down on the billows. "Heigho!" we [Part of this page missing.]

There were days when the sun set in an ochrey haze, when the evening star with its dimmed eye looked down from a sky of emerald green, where as the gloaming deepened into night, not a cloud was there to hide the glittering orbs; then the fairies set to work to adorn the trees, and when morning came, lo! what a sight was there! All around the h.o.a.r-frost lay, white and deep on bush and brake, on the hedgerows and brambles; and every twiglet and thorn was studded with starry jewels on t.i.t twin chestnuts, and they were trees no more--every branchlet and spray was changed to glittering coral; and garlands of silver and lace-work, lovelier far than human brains could ever plan or fingers weave, were looped from bough to bough, and hung in sheeny radiance around the st.u.r.dy stems.

Those dear old chestnut-trees!

And as the seasons pa.s.s o'er the chestnut-trees, and each one clothes them in a beauty of its own, so across the seasons of our life Time spreads his varied joys: childhood, in its innocence, hath its joys, youth in its hope of brighter days, manhood in its strength and ambition, and old age in the peaceful trust of a better world to come.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

THE STORY OF AILEEN'S HUSBAND, NERO.

"The pine-trees, gathering closer in the shadows, Listened in every spray--"

I certainly had no intention of bringing tears to little Ida's eyes; it was mere thoughtlessness on my part, but the result was precisely the same; and there was Ida kneeling beside that great Newfoundland, Theodore Nero, with her arms round his neck, and a moment or two after I had spoken, I positively saw a tear fall on his brow, and lie there like a diamond. Ah! such tears are far more precious than any diamonds.

"You don't love that dog, mouse?" These were the words I had given utterance to, half-banteringly, as she sat near me on the gra.s.s playing with the dog. I went on with my writing, and when I looked up again beheld that tear.

Yes, I felt sorry, and set about at once planning some means of amends.

I knew human nature and Ida's nature too well to make any fuss about the matter--I would not even let her know I had seen her wet eyelashes, nor did I attempt to soothe her. If I had done so, there would have been some hysterical sobbing and a whole flood of tears, with red eyes and perhaps a headache to follow. So without looking up I said--

"By the way, birdie, did ever I tell you Nero's story?"

"Oh, no," she said, in joyful forgetfulness of her recent grief; "and I would so like to hear it. But," she added, doubtfully, "a few minutes ago you said you could not talk to me, that you must finish writing your chapter. Why have you changed your mind?"

"I don't see why in this world, Ida," I replied, smiling, "a man should not be allowed to change his mind sometimes as well as a woman."

This settled the matter, and I put away my paper in my portfolio, and prepared to talk.

Where were we seated? Why, under the old pine-tree--our _very_ favourite seat. My wife was engaged at home turning gooseberries into jam, and had packed Ida and me off, to be out of the way, and friend Frank himself had gone that day on some kind mission or other connected with boys. I never saw any one more fond of boys than Frank was; I am sure he spent all his spare cash on them. He was known all over the parish as the boys' friend. If in town Frank saw a new book suitable for a boy, it was a temptation he could not resist. If he had been poor, I'm certain he would have gone without his dinner in order to secure a good book for a boy. He was constantly finding out deserving lads and getting them situations, and the day they were going to start was a very busy one indeed for Frank. He would be up betimes in the morning, sometimes before the servants, and often before the maids came down he would have the fire lighted, and the kettle boiling, and everything ready for breakfast. Then he would hurry away to the boy's home, to see he got all ready in time for the start, and that he also had had breakfast. He saw him to the station, gave him much kind and fatherly advice, and, probably, in the little kit that accompanied the lad, there were several comforts in the way of clothes, that wouldn't have been there at all if friend Frank had not possessed the kindest heart that ever warmed a human breast.

I said Frank found out the _deserving_ boys; true. But he did not forget the undeserving either, and positively twice every season what should Frank do but get up what he called--

"THE BAD BOYS' CRICKET MATCH."

n.o.body used to play at these matches but the bad boys and the unregenerate and the ungrateful boys. And after the match was over, if you had peeped into the tent you would have seen Frank, his jolly face radiant, seated at the head of a well-spread table, and all his bad boys around him, and, had you been asked, you could not have said for certain whether Frank looked happier than the boys, or the boys happier than Frank.

But I've seen a really bad boy going away from home to some situation, where Frank was sending him on trial, and bidding Frank good-bye with the big lumps of tears rolling down over cheeks and nose, and heard the boy say--

"G.o.d bless ye, sir; ye've been a deal kinder to me than my own father, and I'll try to deserve all your goodness, sir, and lead a better life."

To whom Frank would curtly reply, perhaps with a tear in his own honest blue eye--

"Don't thank me, boy--I can't stand that. There, good-bye; turn over a new leaf, and don't let me see you back for a year--only write to me.

Good-bye."

And Frank's boys' letters, how he did enjoy them to be sure!

Dear Frank! he is dead and gone, else dare I not write thus about him, for a more modest man than my friend I have yet to find.

Well, Frank was away to-day on some good mission, and that is how Ida and I were alone with the dogs. Nero, by the way, was on the sick-list to some extent. Indeed, Nero never minded being put on the sick-list if there was nothing very serious the matter with him, because this entailed a deal of extra petting, and innumerable t.i.t-bits and dainties that would never otherwise have found the road to his appreciative maw.

As to petting, the dog could put up with any amount of it; and it is a fact that I have known him sham ill in order to be made much of. Once, I remember, he had hurt his leg by jumping, and long after he was better, if any of us would turn about, when he was walking well enough, and say--in fun, of course--"Just look how lame that poor dear dog is!"

then Nero would a.s.sume the Alexandra limp on the spot, and keep it up for some time, unless a rat happened to run across the road, or a rabbit, or a hedgehog put in an appearance--if so, he forgot all about the bad leg.

"Well, birdie," I said, "to give you anything like a complete history of that faithful fellow you are fondling is impossible. It would take up too much time, because it would include the history of the last ten years of my own life, and that would hardly be worth recording. When my poor old Tyro died, the world, as far as dogs were concerned, seemed to me a sad blank. I have never forgotten Tyro, the dog of my student days, I never shall, and I am not ashamed to say that I live in hopes of meeting him again.

"What says Tupper about Sandy, birdie? Repeat the lines, dear, if you remember them, and then I'll tell you something about Nero."

Ida did so, in her sweet, girlish tones; and even at this moment, reader, I have only to shut my eyes, and I seem to see and hear her once more as she sits on that mossy bank, with her one arm around the great Newfoundland's neck, and the summer wind playing with her bonnie hair.

"Thank you, birdie," I said, when she had finished.

"Now then," said Ida.

"I was on half-pay when I first met Nero," I began, "and for some time the relations between us were somewhat strained, for Newfoundlands are most faithful to old memories. The dog seemed determined not to let himself love me or forget his old master, and I felt determined not to love him. It seemed to me positively cruel to let any other animal find a place in my affections, with poor Tyro so recently laid in his grave in the romantic old castle of Doune. So a good month went past without any great show of affection on either side.

"Advancement towards a kindlier condition of feeling betwixt us took place first and foremost from the dog's side. He began to manifest regard for me in a somewhat strange way. His sleeping apartment was a nice, clean, well-bedded out-house, but every morning he used to find his way upstairs to my room before I was awake, and on quietly gaining an entrance, the next thing he would do was to place his two fore-paws on the bed at my shoulder, then raise himself straight up to the perpendicular.

"So when I awoke I would find, on looking up, the great dog standing thus, looming high above me, but as silent and fixed as if he had been a statue chiselled out of the blackest marble.

"At first it used to be quite startling, but I soon got used to it. He never bent his head, but just stood there.

"'I'm here,' he seemed to say, 'and you can caress me if you choose; I wouldn't be here at all if I didn't care just a little about you.'