Brothers of Pity and Other Tales of Beasts and Men

The care of a large family is no light matter, as everybody knows. And that year I had an unusually large family. No less than seven young urchins for Mrs. Hedgehog and myself to take care of and start in life; and there was not a prickly parent on this side of the brook, or within three fields beyond, who had more than four.

My father's brother had six one year, I know. It was the summer that I myself was born. I can remember hearing my father and mother talk about it before I could see. As these six cousins were discussed in a tone of interest and respect which seemed to bear somewhat disparagingly on me and my brother and sisters (there were only four of us), I was rather glad to learn that they also had been born blind. My father used to go and see them, and report their progress to my mother on his return.

"They can see to-day."

"They have curled themselves up. Every one of them. Six beautiful little balls; as round as crab-apples and as safe as burrs!"

I tried to curl myself up, but I could only get my coat a little way over my nose. I cried with vexation. But one should not lose heart too easily. With patience and perseverance most things can be brought about, and I could soon both see and curl myself into a ball. It was about this time that my father hurried home one day, tossing the leaves at least three inches over his head as he bustled along.

"What in the hedge do you think has happened to the six?" said he.

"Oh, don't tell me!" cried my mother; "I am so nervous." (Which she was, and rather foolish as well, which used to irritate my father, who was hasty tempered, as I am myself.)

"They've been taken by gipsies and flitted," said he.

"What do you mean by flitted?" inquired my mother.

"A string is tied round a hind-leg of each, and they are tethered in the grass behind the tent, just as the donkey is tethered. So they will remain till they grow fat, and then they will be cooked."

"Will the donkey be cooked when he is fat?" asked my mother.

"I smell valerian," said my father; on which she put out her nose, and he ran at it with his prickles. He always did this when he was annoyed with any member of his family; and though we knew what was coming, we are all so fond of valerian, we could never resist the temptation to sniff, just on the chance of there being some about.

I had long wanted to see my cousins, and I now begged my father to let me go with him the next time he went to visit them. But he was rather cross that morning, and he ran at me with his back up.

"So you want to gad about and be kidnapped and flitted too, do you? Just let me-"

But when I saw him coming, I rolled myself up as tight as a wood-louse, and as my ears were inside I really did not hear what else he said. But I was not a whit the less resolved to see my cousins.

One day my father bustled home.

"Upon my whine," said he, "they live on the fat of the land. Scraps of all kinds, apples, and a dish of bread and milk under their very noses. I sat inside a gorse bush on the bank, and watched them till my mouth watered."

The next day he reported-

"They've cooked one-in clay. There are only five now."

And the next day-

"They've cooked another. Now there are only four."

"There won't be a cousin left if I wait much longer," thought I.

On the morrow there were only three.

My mother began to cry. "My poor dear nephews and nieces!" said she (though she had never seen them). "What a world this is!"

"We must take it as we eat eggs," said my father, with that air of wisdom which naturally belongs to the sayings of the head of the family, "the shell with the yolk. And they have certainly had excellent victuals."

Next morning he went off as usual, and I crept stealthily after him. With his spines laid flat to his sides, and his legs well under him, he ran at a good round pace, and as he did not look back I followed him with impunity. By and by he climbed a bank and then crept into a furze bush, whose prickles were no match for his own. I dared not go right into the bush for fear he should see me, but I settled myself as well as I could under shelter of a furze branch, and looked down on to the other side of the bank, where my father's nose was also directed. And there I saw my three cousins, tethered as he had said, and apparently very busy over-eating themselves on food which they had not had the trouble of procuring.

If I had heard less about the cooking, I might have envied them; as it was, that somewhat voracious appetite characteristic of my family disturbed my judgment sufficiently to make me almost long to be flitted myself. I fancy it must have been when I pushed out my nose and sniffed involuntarily towards the victuals, that the gipsy man heard me.

He had been lying on the grass, looking much lazier than my cousins-which is saying a good deal-and only turning his swarthy face when the gipsy girl, as she moved about and tended the fire, got out of the sight of his eyes. Then he moved so that he could see her again; not, as it seemed, to see what she was doing or to help her to do it, but as leaves move with the wind, or as we unpacked our noses against our wills when my father said he smelt valerian.

She was very beautiful. Her skin was like a trout pool-clear and yet brown. I never saw any eyes like her eyes, though our neighbour's-the Water Rat-at times recalls them. Her hair was the colour of ripe blackberries in a hot hedge-very ripe ones, with the bloom on. She moved like a snake. I have seen my father chase a snake more than once, and I have seen a good many men and women in my time. Some of them walk like my father, they bustle along and kick up the leaves as he does; and some of them move quickly and yet softly, as snakes go. The gipsy girl moved so, and wherever she went the gipsy man's eyes went after her.

Suddenly he turned them on me. For an instant I was paralyzed and stood still. I could hear my father bustling down the bank; in a few minutes he would be at home, where my brother and sisters were safe and sound, whilst I was alone and about to reap the reward of my disobedience, in the fate of which he had warned me-to be taken by gipsies and flitted.

Nothing, my dear children-my seven dear children-is more fatal in an emergency than indecision. I was half disposed to hurry after my father, and half resolved to curl myself into a ball. I had one foot out and half my back rounded, when the gipsy man pinned me to the ground with a stick, and the gipsy girl strode up. I could not writhe myself away from the stick, but I gazed beseechingly at the gipsy girl and squealed for my life.

"Let the poor little brute go, Basil," she said, laughing. "We've three flitted still."

"Let it go?" cried the young man scornfully, and with another poke, which I thought had crushed me to bits, though I was still able to cry aloud.

The gipsy girl turned her back and went away with one movement and without speaking.

"Sybil!" cried the man; but she did not look round.

"Sybil, I say!"

She was breaking sticks for the fire slowly across her knee, but she made no answer. He took his stick out of my back, and went after her.

"I've let it go," he said, throwing himself down again, "and a good dinner has gone with it. But you can do what you like with me-and small thanks I get for it."

"I can do anything with you but keep you out of mischief," she answered, fixing her eyes steadily on him. He sat up and began to throw stones, aiming them at my three cousins.

"Take me for good and all, instead of tormenting me, and you will," he said.

"Will you give up Jemmy and his gang?" she asked; but as he hesitated for an instant, she tossed the curls back from her face and moved away, saying, "Not you; for all your talk! And yet for your sake, I would give up-"

He bounded to his feet, but she had put the bonfire between them, and before he could get round it, she was on the other side of a tilted cart, where another woman, in a crimson cloak, sat doing something to a dirty pack of cards.

I did not like to see the gipsy man on his feet again, and having somewhat recovered breath, I scrambled down the bank and got home as quickly as the stiffness and soreness of my skin would allow.

I never saw my cousins again, and it was long before I saw any more gipsies; for that day's adventure gave me a shock to which my children owe the exceeding care and prudence that I display in the choice of our summer homes and winter retreats, and in repressing every tendency to a wandering disposition among the members of my family.

* * *

That summer-I mean the summer when I had seven-we had the most charming home imaginable. It was in a wood, and on that side of the wood which is farthest from houses and highroads. Here it was bounded by a brook, and beyond this lay a fine pasture field.

There are fields and fields. I never wish to know a better field than this one. I seldom go out much till the evening, but if business should take one along the hedge in the heat of the sun, there are as juicy and refreshing crabs to be picked up under a tree about half-way down the south side, as the thirstiest creature could desire.

And when the glare and drought of midday have given place to the mild twilight of evening, and the grass is refreshingly damped with dew, and scents are strong, and the earth yields kindly to the nose, what beetles and lob-worms reward one's routing!

I am convinced that the fattest and stupidest slugs that live, live near the brook. I never knew one who found out I was eating him, till he was half-way down my throat. And just opposite to the place where I furnished your dear mother's nest, is a small plantation of burdocks, on the underside of which stick the best flavoured snails I am acquainted with, in such inexhaustible quantities, that a hedgehog might have fourteen children in a season, and not fear their coming short of provisions.

And in the early summer, in the long grass on the edge of the wood-but no! I will not speak of it.

My dear children, my seven dear children, may you never know what it is to taste a pheasant's egg-to taste several pheasant's eggs, and to eat them, shells and all.

There are certain pleasures of which a parent may himself have partaken, but which, if he cannot reconcile them with his ideas of safety and propriety, he will do well not to allow his children even to hear of. I do not say that I wish I had never tasted a pheasant's egg myself, but, when I think of traps baited with valerian, of my great-uncle's great-coat nailed to the keeper's door, of the keeper's heavy-heeled boots, and of the impropriety of poaching, I feel, as a father, that it is desirable that you should never know that there are such things as eggs, and then you will be quite happy without them.

But it was not the abundant and varied supply of food which had determined my choice of our home: it was not even because no woodland bower could be more beautiful,-because the coppice foliage was fresh and tender overhead, and the old leaves soft and elastic to the prickles below,-because the young oaks sheltered us behind, and we had a charming outlook over the brook in front, between a gnarled alder and a young sycamore, whose embracing branches were the lintel of our doorway.

No. I chose this particular spot in this particular wood, because I had reason to believe it to be a somewhat neglected bit of what men call "property,"-because the bramble bushes were unbroken, the fallen leaves untrodden, the hyacinths and ragged-robins ungathered by human feet and hands,-because the old fern-fronds faded below the fresh green plumes,-because the violets ripened seed,-because the trees were unmarked by woodmen and overpopulated with birds, and the water-rat sat up in the sun with crossed paws and without a thought of danger,-because, in short, no birds'-nesting, fern-digging, flower-picking, leaf-mould-wanting, vermin-hunting creatures ever came hither to replenish their ferneries, gardens, cages, markets, and museums.

My feelings can therefore be imagined when I was roused from an afternoon nap one warm summer's day by the voices of men and women. Several possibilities came into my mind, and I imparted them to my wife.

"They may be keepers."

"They may be poachers."

"They may be boys birds'-nesting."

"They may be street-sellers of ferns, moss, and so forth."

"They may be collectors of specimens."

"They may be pic-nic-ers-people who bring salt twisted up in a bit of paper with them, and leave it behind when they go away. Don't let the children touch it!"

"They may be-and this is the worst that could happen-men collecting frogs, toads, newts, snails, and hedgehogs for the London markets. We must keep very quiet. They will go away at sunset."

I was quite wrong, and when I heard the slow wheels of a cart I knew it. They were none of these things, and they did not go away. They were travelling tinkers, and they settled down and made themselves at home within fifty yards of mine.

My nerves have never been strong since that day under the furze bush. My first impulse was to roll myself up so tightly that I got the cramp, whilst every spine on my back stood stiff with fright. But after a time I recovered myself, and took counsel with Mrs. Hedgehog.

"Two things," said she, "are most important. We must keep the children from gadding, and we must make them hold their tongues."

"They never can be so foolish as to wish to quit your side, my dear, in the circumstances," said I. But I was mistaken.

I know nothing more annoying to a father who has learned the danger of indiscreet curiosity in his youth, than to find his sons apparently quite uninfluenced by his valuable experience.

"What are tinkers like?" was the first thing said by each one of the seven on the subject.

"They are a set of people," I replied, in a voice as sour as a green crab, "who if they hear us talking, or catch us walking abroad, will kill your mother and me, and temper up two bits of clay and roll us up in them. Then they will put us into a fire to bake, and when the clay turns red they will take us out. The clay will fall off and our coats with it. What remains they will eat-as we eat snails. You seven will be flitted. That is, you will be pegged to the ground till you grow big." (I thought it well not to mention the bread and milk.) "Then they will kill and bake and eat you in the same fashion."

I think this frightened the children; but they would talk about the tinkers, though they dared not go near them.

"The best thing you can do," said Mrs. Hedgehog, "is to tell them a story to keep them quiet. You can modulate your own voice, and stop if you hear the tinkers."

Hereupon I told them a story (a very old one) of the hedgehog who ran a race with a hare, on opposite sides of a hedge, for the wager of a louis d'or and a bottle of brandy. It was a great favourite with them.

"The moral of the tale, my dear children," I was wont to say, "is, that our respected ancestor's head saved his heels, which is never the case with giddy-pated creatures like the hare."

"Perhaps it was a very young hare," said Mrs. Hedgehog, who is amiable, and does not like to blame any one if it can be avoided.

"I don't think it can have been a very young hare," said I, "or the hedgehog would have eaten him instead of outwitting him. As it was, he placed himself and Mrs. Hedgehog at opposite ends of the course. The hare started on one side of the hedge and the hedgehog on the other. Away went the hare like the wind, but Mr. Hedgehog took three steps and went back to his place. When the hare reached his end of the hedge, Mrs. Hedgehog, from the other side, called out, 'I'm here already.' Her voice and her coat were very like her husband's, and the hare was not observant enough to remark a slight difference of size and colour. The moral of which is, my dear children, that one must use his eyes as well as his legs in this world. The hare tried several runs, but there was always a hedgehog at the goal when he got there. So he gave in at last, and our ancestors walked comfortably home, taking the louis d'or and the bottle of brandy with them."

"What is a louis d'or?" cried three of my children; and "What is brandy?" asked the other four.

"I smell valerian," said I; on which they poked out their seven noses, and I ran at them with my spines, for a father who is not an Encyclop?dia on all fours must adopt some method of checking the inquisitiveness of the young.

When grown-up people desire information or take an interest in their neighbours, this, of course, is another matter. Mrs. Hedgehog and I had never seen tinkers, and we resolved to take an early opportunity some evening of sending the seven urchins down to the burdock plantations to pick snails, whilst we paid a cautious visit to the tinker camp.

But mothers are sad fidgets, and anxious as Mrs. Hedgehog was to gratify her curiosity, she kept putting off our expedition till the children's spines should be harder; so I made one or two careful ones by myself, and told her all the news on my return.

* * *

"The animal Man," so I have heard my uncle, who was a learned hedgehog, say,-"the animal man is a diurnal animal; he comes out and feeds in the daytime." But a second cousin, who had travelled as far as Covent Garden, and who lived for many years in a London kitchen, told me that he thought my uncle was wrong, and that man comes out and feeds at night. He said he knew of at least one house in which the crickets and black-beetles never got a quiet kitchen to themselves till it was nearly morning.

But I think my uncle was right about men in the country. I am sure the tinker and his family slept at night. He and his wife were out a great deal during the day. They went away from the wood and left the children with an old woman, who was the tinker's mother. At one time they were away for several days, and about my usual time for going out the children were asleep, and the old woman used to sit over the camp fire with her head on her hands.

"The language of men, my dear," I observed to Mrs. Hedgehog, "is quite different to ours, even in general tone; but I assure you that when I first heard the tinker's mother, I could have wagered a louis d'or and a bottle of brandy that I heard hedgehogs whining to each other. In fact, I was about to remonstrate with them for their imprudence, when I found out that it was the old woman who was moaning and muttering to herself."

"What is the matter with her?" asked Mrs. Hedgehog.

"I was curious to know myself," said I, "and from what I have overheard, I think I can inform you. She is the tinker's mother, and judging from what he said the other night, was not by any means indulgent to him when he was a child. She is harsh enough to his young brats now; but it appears that she was devoted to an older son, one of the children of his first wife; and that it is for the loss of this grandchild that she vexes herself."

"Is he dead?"

"No, my dear, but-"

"Has he been flitted?"

"Something of the kind, I fear. He has been taken to prison."

"Dear, dear!" said Mrs. Hedgehog; "what a trial to a mother's feelings! Will they bake him?"

"I think not," said I. "I fancy that he is tethered up as a punishment for taking what did not belong to him; and the grandmother's grievance seems to be that she believes he was unjustly convicted. She thinks the real robber was a gipsy. Just as if I were taken, and my skin nailed to the keeper's door for pheasant's eggs which I had never had the pleasure of eating."

Mrs. Hedgehog was now dying of curiosity. She said she thought the children's spines were strong enough for anything that was likely to happen to them; and so the next fresh damp evening we sent the seven urchins down to the burdocks to pick snails, and crept cautiously towards the tinker's encampment to see what we could see. And there, by the smouldering embers of a bonfire, sat the old woman moaning, as I had described her, with her elbows on her knees, rocking and nursing her head, from which her long hair was looped and fell, like grey rags, about her withered fingers.

"I don't like her looks," snorted Mrs. Hedgehog. "And how disgustingly they have trampled the grass."

"It is quite true," said I; "it will not recover itself this summer. I wish they had left us our wood to ourselves."

At this moment Mrs. Hedgehog laid her five toes on mine, to attract my attention, and whispered-"Is it a gipsy?" and lifting my nose in the direction of the rustling brushwood, I saw Sybil. There was no mistaking her, though her cheeks looked hollower and her eyes larger than when I saw her last.

"Good-evening, mother," she said.

The old woman raised her gaunt face with a start, and cried fiercely, "Begone with you! Begone!" and then bent it again upon her hands, muttering, "There are plenty of hedges and ditches too good for your lot, without their coming to worrit us in our wood."

The gipsy girl knelt quietly by the fire, and stirred up the embers.

"What is the matter, mother?" she said. "We've only just come, and when I heard that Tinker George and his mother were in the wood, I started to find you. 'You makes too free with the tinkers,' says my brother's wife. 'I goes to see my mother,' says I, 'who nursed me through a sickness, my real mother being dead, and my own people wanting to bury me through my not being able to speak or move, and their wanting to get to the Bartelmy Fair.' I never forget, mother; have you forgotten me, that you drives me away for bidding you good-day?"

"Good days are over for me," moaned the old woman. "Begone, I say! Don't let me see or hear any that belongs to Black Basil, or it may be the worse for them."

("The tinker-mother whines very nastily," said Mrs. Hedgehog. "If I were the young woman, I should bite her."

"Hush!" I answered, "she is speaking.")

"Basil is in prison," said the gipsy girl hoarsely.

The old woman's eyes shone in their sockets, as she looked up at Sybil for a minute, as if to read the gipsy's sentence on her face; and then she chuckled,

"So they've taken the Terror of the Roads?"

Sybil's eyes had not moved from the fire, before which she was now standing with clasped hands.

"The Terror of the Roads?" she said. "Yes, they call him that,-but I could turn him round my finger, mother." Her voice had dropped, and she smoothed one of her black curls absently round her finger as she spoke.

"You couldn't keep him out of prison," taunted the old woman.

"I couldn't keep him out of mischief," said the girl, sadly; and then, with a sudden flash of anger, she clasped her hands above her head and cried, "A black curse on Jemmy and his gang!"

"A black curse on them as lets the innocent go to prison in their stead. They comes there themselves in the end, and long may it hold them!" was the reply.

Sybil moved swiftly to the old woman's side.

"I heard you was in trouble, mother, about Christian; but you don't think-"

"Think!" screamed the old woman, shaking her fists, whilst the girl interrupted her-

"Hush, mother, hush! tell me now, tell me all, but not so loud," and kneeling with her back to us, she said something more in a low voice, to which the old woman replied in a whine so much moderated, that though Mrs. Hedgehog and I strained our ears, and crept as near the group as we dared, we could not catch a word.

Only, after a while Sybil rose up and walked back slowly to the fire, twisting the long lock of her hair as before, and saying-"I turns him round my finger, mother, as far as that goes-"

"So you thinks," said the old crone. "But he never will-even if you would, Sybil Stanley! Oh Christian, my child, my child!"

The gipsy girl stood still, like a young poplar-tree in the dead calm before thunder; and there fell a silence, in which I dared not have moved myself, or allowed Mrs. Hedgehog to move, three steps through the softest grass, for fear of being heard.

Then Sybil said abruptly, "I've never rightly heard about Christian, mother. What was it made you think so much more of him than you thinks about the others?"

* * *