A Rough Shaking | Page 7

is the way Christians talk about their friends gone home to the grand old family mansion! Why they do, they would hardly like one to tell them!"
"It is true," I responded. "I understand you now! I don't think I ever heard a widow speak of her departed husband without putting _poor_, or _poor dear_, before his name.--By the way, when you hear a woman speak of her late husband, can you help thinking her ready to marry again?"
"It does sound as if she had done with him! But here we are at the gate!--Call, Memnon."
The horse gave a clear whinny, gentle, but loud enough to be heard at some distance. It was a tall gate of wrought iron, but Memnon's summons was answered by one who could clear it--though not open it any more than he: a little bird, which I was not ornithologist enough to recognize--mainly because of my short-sightedness, I hope--came fluttering from the long avenue within, perched on the top of the gate, looked down at our party for a moment as if debating the prudent, dropped suddenly on Memnon's left ear, and thence to his master's shoulder, where he sat till the gate was opened. The little one went half-way up the inner avenue with us, making several flights and returns before he left us.
The boy that opened the gate, a chubby little fellow of seven, looked up in Mr. Skymer's face as if he had been his father and king in one, and stood gazing after him as long as he was in sight. I noticed also--who could have failed to notice?--that every now and then a bird would drop from the tree we were passing under, and alight for a minute on my host's head. Once when he happened to uncover it, seven or eight perched together upon it. One tiny bird got caught in his beard by the claws.
"You cannot surely have tamed all the birds in your grounds!" I said.
"If I have," he answered, "it has been by permitting them to be themselves."
"You mean it is the nature of birds to be friendly with man?"
"I do. Through long ages men have been their enemies, and so have alienated them--they too not being themselves."
"You mean that unfriendliness is not natural to men?"
"It cannot be human to be cruel!"
"How is it, then, that so many boys are careless what suffering they inflict?"
"Because they have in them the blood of men who loved cruelty, and never repented of it."
"But how do you account for those men loving cruelty--for their being what you say is contrary to their nature?"
"Ah, if I could account for that, I should be at the secret of most things! All I meant to half-explain was, how it came that so many who have no wish to inflict suffering, yet are careless of inflicting it."
I saw that we must know each other better before he would quite open his mind to me. I saw that though, hospitable of heart, he threw his best rooms open to all, there were others in his house into which he did not invite every acquaintance.
The avenue led to a wide gravelled space before a plain, low, long building in whitish stone, with pillared portico. In the middle of the space was a fountain, and close to it a few chairs. Mr. Skymer begged me to be seated. Memnon walked up to the fountain, and lay down, that I might get off his back as easily as I had got on it. Once down, he turned on his side, and lay still.
"The air is so mild," said my host, "I fancy you will prefer this to the house."
"Mild!" I rejoined; "I should call it hot!"
"I have been so much in real heat!" he returned. "Notwithstanding my love of turf, I keep this much in gravel for the sake of the desert."
I took the seat he offered me, wondering whether Memnon was comfortable where he lay; and, absorbed in the horse, did not see my host go to the other side of the basin. Suddenly we were "clothed upon" with a house which, though it came indeed from the earth, might well have come direct from heaven: a great uprush of water spread above us a tent-like dome, through which the sun came with a cool, broken, almost frosty glitter. We seemed in the heart of a huge soap-bubble. I exclaimed with delight.
"I thought you would enjoy my sun-shade!" said Mr. Skymer. "Memnon and I often come here of a hot morning, when nobody wants us. Don't we, Memnon?"
The horse lifted his nose a little, and made a low soft noise, a chord of mingled obedience and delight--a moan of pleasure mixed with a half-born whinny.
We had not been seated many moments, and had scarcely pushed off the