The Story of a Dewdrop - John R. Macduff (best short books to read TXT) 📗

word, turned on its side on the leafy bed, shut both eyes, and went to sleep. The Nightingale was of course too polite, civil, and considerate to prolong. So he simply said, "Good night to you, little Teardrop, or Dewdrop, whatever you prefer calling yourself. It is time, and more than time, for me to be on the wing. I have one or two domestic anxieties which, in the first place, I must see to; and, after that, I have an engagement among these old hawthorns to serenade till morning."

"Good night, kind bird," replied the Dewdrop, turning in politeness half round on its pillow; "thank you for thinking of me in my loneliness." And away the songster flew, first to his home, and then, after some outstanding duties and civilities, over to his thicket among the May blossoms. The extreme beauty of the night seemed to dispel all care, and to have a decidedly inspiring effect on his nerves. I cannot tell whether he had really any such ambitious thought, but it almost seemed, from the gush of song, an attempt was made that every star in the heavens might at all events hear, if they could not appreciate his melodies.


CHAPTER THE SECOND.


It was now morning. The mist still slept drowsily in the valley; in some places so dense, that the smoke of the early fires in the hamlet could scarcely pierce it. Already our friend the Thrush had completed both toilet and breakfast, and had issued forth on his round of daily work and pleasure; as active and busy as the thrush family always are. When he first rose from bed, he was not exactly in the very best of humours; for he had, what was always a cross to him when it occurred (though that was rarely), a disturbed night. Shall I tell you how his rest came thus to be invaded? Why, the Nightingale, on his way from the rose-leaf, had, perhaps somewhat inconsiderately, tapped at his door, to inform him that all he could get out of the Dewdrop was (a very incomprehensible sentiment to a sleepy bird), that he was a tear wept by the Sky when it lost the Sun; and he was bound in all sincerity to add, that it seemed rather a dull and uninteresting tear to boot.

"I know better," growled the Thrush. (I have used the word "growl," because I can find no better to describe the reality.) Growling, I am well aware, is a very uncommon demonstration of feeling in the case of a warbler. At all events, if it was not a growl, it was the nearest approach his beak could make to one, as he turned on the pillow which had been thus rudely disturbed. After, however, dozing for a few more hours, breakfast over, and his family seen to, off he sped with all his former cheerfulness and activity, till he found himself perched on a branch of the very tallest elm-tree he could pick out, and one, too, right above where the rose and the dewdrop were. Dear me! how he piped, and chirruped, and throstled! I thought the Nightingale had done wonders in that way; but it was nothing to the Thrush. He doubtless was under the impression that the Dewdrop was sound asleep, and needed no ordinary efforts in the way of rousing. I am sure if one could have dived under the yellow feathers, the little throat must have been purple.

After these musical preliminaries, our new friend (Songster No. 2) ventured by-and-by to come nearer. But, in doing so, he could hardly believe his eyes, specially after what the Nightingale had told him.

"A teardrop" indeed! There was not a bit of the tear about it. Where had been the Nightingale's eyes? It was something at all events very like a bright, unmistakable, beautiful diamond on which the Thrush looked. How it glistened and sparkled; and that too with all the prismatic colours! The spectator could only (what was an effort to any member of the Thrush family) gaze in mute wonder.

"What in all the world can you be, you lovely, silent sleeper on the rose-leaf, with your round crystal cheeks? Dewdrop we thought you were; teardrop you say you are: I cannot think you are either. If you are not a diamond set in rubies-stolen, for anything I know, from yesterday's rainbow-you look the thing uncommonly well."

"I am indeed a diamond," answered the Dewdrop. "Look at me," said the little gleaming dot, with the air of an aristocrat; "do you not say I am fit for a monarch's crown? And it is a monarch's crown I am presently to be set in. Every day I meet the Queen of the Morning.-Stay," it suddenly exclaimed, "I see her even now advancing with her rosy feet, 'sowing the earth with pearls.' See, for yourself, how the few stars which still linger in the sky, and which with their glittering torches lighted her out of the Eastern Gate, are paling every minute behind her! She says, of all the jewels in her tiara there is not one she is fonder of, or prouder of, than me. Away, away, little bird," stammered out the Dewdrop, with some nervous twitchings presently to be accounted for; "I must prepare to meet this Queen Aurora. But," it added in a kind of afterthought, "the procession will soon be over; come back shortly and see me, if you please." The keen diamond eye twinkled with a humorous, comical expression when these last words were uttered; as much as to say, "I shall manage to cheat you, old fellow, wont I?"

The Thrush had some small quantum of poetry in his nature; but he had a great deal of shrewd common sense too, and an immense idea of propriety. Accordingly, he at once took the hint as to departure; but with guileless simplicity cherished the resolution of renewing the intercourse, in an hour or two at latest, after the royal cavalcade had swept by.

This interlude was no peculiar hardship to our erratic friend, who knew he could spend the time merrily and profitably among his numerous kinsfolk in the groves. To tell the truth, he was not sorry to get away from the court pageantry, as all such ceremonial and pomp of circumstance was an abomination to him, and had always been so. It was, therefore, with pleasant anticipations of an early return that, by a few fleet bounces, he was lost from sight in the nearest thicket.

Barely, however, had the specified period elapsed, when he was back again upon his twig on the tall elm. He had certainly not exhausted his strength or conversational music-powers in that round of morning visits, for he renewed, then and there, his merriest notes, quite in the old style; and after this prelude, by way of making sure that the course was clear, he flew with more than wonted alacrity in the direction of the rose-leaf.

But, can you imagine? To his wonder, sorrow, and chagrin, lo! when he looked for it, the leaf was empty! Its small householder was gone! Not a trace of either Dewdrop or Diamond left! There was no need of asking any questions; he comprehended in a moment what the roguish twinkle of the eye meant an hour before. He had, in a word, been "sold." It was more than a mere innocent trick played on him. His feelings and bird-dignity had, he felt, been a little compromised by what, had it occurred at night, would have been called "a moonlight flitting." It was more like what the big creatures in the world around him were in the habit of describing as an April errand. It was only too evident that the Queen of the Morning, in passing by, had picked up the dew diamond, and had inserted it in her crown; and that the little thing had made no demur to the appropriation.

Well, it must be owned that, anyhow for once, the Thrush was crestfallen. He almost never knew any ditties but joyous ones; but on the present occasion, with no attempt at concealment, he went away wailing to the thicket, and outpoured his wounded vanity in something very like a dirge. He then buried his beak in rather sulky fashion under his wing, and went to sleep.


CHAPTER THE THIRD.


But what is this? It is a change of scene. Away up in the morning sky, oh, how blue it is! and the light fleecy clouds, how they float in folds of white ether! The Sun has climbed higher. It is now above the tallest of the poplars; and the long shadows cast by trunks and stems and branches are visibly shortened. And see! the cattle are again lowing in the fat meadows, and by degrees beating a safe retreat from the coming heat under the forest trees.

High in that bright dome of azure, there is a delightful frolicsome twitter heard. It is not the Nightingale; no, not so clear and mellow as that. Not the Thrush; no, not so loud or gushing as that. It is our little friend the Lark. Oh! how merry he is! more so than either of the other two. And what is he about? He seems to be floating and soaring, sauntering and curtseying, skimming and dipping, rollicking and frolicking-now up, now down-now describing gyrations, now imitating a pendulum-now trying to be so steady with his fluttering wings, that he looks like a star twinkling in the day-time-in short, playing all sorts of droll antics, indulging in every imaginable pirouette and somersault, in all the world (in his case above the world) like a school-boy beginning his holidays; certainly appearing to put himself to a great deal of unnecessary trouble and exertion. But he is unmistakably, with his winning ways, about something, and something to the purpose. But what that is, no mortal could guess. As the thing however must be guessed, or otherwise found out, Gentle Reader, I shall take you into confidence, and unriddle the secret.

The Queen of the Morning, as you already know, or at all events know now, had come with all her court, and troupe of gay courtiers. The Young Hours had unbarred for her the Gates of Day, and she at once sallied forth. Beautiful little pages in the shape of pink clouds, quite like tiny angels with wings, were holding up her train. Some of those fairy cherubs seemed, too, to have censers in their hands, at least if one could judge from the delicate wreaths of mist which rose like incense from them. Others appeared to be discharging tiny golden arrows from silver bows; others to paint, with invisible pencils, in delicate and varying hues of amber and purple, the fringes of clouds; while the Queen herself at times laid her own finger upon the larger of these, and braided them with snow and crimson. And then, how loyal everything seemed to be on the earth beneath! How each flower that had been asleep all night instantly rose on awaking, and, in the most duteous manner uncovering its head, prepared to take its place in the royal procession. The more gorgeous ones of the garden led the way, with their velvet tassels, and silken brocades, and pendants of opal and turquoise; some apparently carrying chalices filled with nectar. Then the fields and hedgerows, in their rough, rustic, plebeian fashion, with their fustian jackets and smock-frocks, said-"We shall not be behind our betters;" so their buttercups and wood-anemones, speedwell and scarlet pimpernel, the meadow violet with its modest blue, the cowslip with its burnished cells, the daisy with its "golden eye and white silver eyelashes," all did fealty to their adored Queen. Some went down on their knees; others doffed their