The Singing Mouse Stories | Page 4

things when the leaves grew
brown. In those low, easy hills strange creatures dwelt. Birds of brown
plumage and wondrous, soul-startling burst of wing. Large gray
creatures, a foot long or longer, with light tread on the leaves, and long
ears that went a-peak when you whistled to them. Were ever such

beings before in any land? For the pursuit of these, it seems, one must
have boots with copper toes, made waterproof by abundant tallow.
There must be a vast game-bag--a world too large for a boyish
form--and strange things to eat therein, such as one sees no longer; for
on a chase calling for such daring-do it may be needful that one walk
far, across the hills, along the little river, almost to the Delectable
Mountains themselves. Again I see it all. Again I follow through the
hills that same tall, tireless figure with the grave and kindly face. Again
I wonder at the uncomprehended skill which brought whirling down ten
out of the dozen of those brown lightning balls. Again I rejoice, beyond
all count or measure, over the first leporine murder committed by
myself, the same furthered by means of a rest on a forked tree. It seems
to me I groan secretly again at the weight of that great gun before the
night has come. I almost wince again at the pulling off of those
copper-toed boots at night, there by the kitchen stove, after the chase is
done. But, ah! how happy I am again, holding up for the gaze of a kind
pair of eyes this great, gray creature with the lopping ears.
Now, as we walk by the banks of this magic river, I would that it might
be always as it was in the earliest days. I like best to think myself
mistaken when I suspect a greater stoop in this once familiar form
which knew these hills and woods so well. It can not be that the quick
eye has grown less bright. Yet why was the last mallard missed? And
tell me, is not the old dog ranging as widely as once he did? Can it be
that he keeps closer at heel? Does he look up once in a while,
mournfully, with a dimmer eye, at an eye becoming also dimmer--does
he walk more slowly, by a step now not so fast? Does he look up--My
God!--is there melancholy in a dog's eye, too?
[Illustration]

[Illustration: What the Waters Said]
[Illustration]
WHAT THE WATERS SAID

The fire was flickering fitfully and painting ghostly shadows on the
wall. It was winter, and late in winter; indeed, the season was now at
length drawing near to the end of winter, and approaching that dear
time of spring which, beyond doubt, will be the eventful front and
closing of the circle in the land where winter will not come.
I had drawn the little pine table close to the heap of failing embers, and
aided by what light the sulky candle gave, was bending over and trying
to arrange a patch on my old hunting-coat. It was an old, old
hunting-coat, far gone in the sere and yellow leaf. It was old-fashioned
now, though once of proper cut and comeliness. It was disfigured,
stained and worn. The pockets were torn down. The bindings were
worn out. It was quite willing to be left alone now, hung by upon a
forgotten nail, and subject to no further requisition. Nevertheless, if its
owner wished, it could still do a day or two. I knew that; and something
in the sturdy texture of its oft-tried nature excited more than half my
admiration, and all my love.
Walpurgis on the ceiling, gray coming on in the embers, symptoms of
death in the candle, a blotch of tallow on the Shakespeare, and the coat
not half done. It must have been about then, I think, that the thin-edged
sweetness of the Singing Mouse's voice pierced keenly through the air.
I was right glad when the little creature came and sat on my knee, and
in its affectionate way began to nibble at my finger-tips. It sat erect, its
thin paws waving with a tiny, measured swing, and in its mystic voice,
so infinitely small, so sweet and yet so majestically strong, began a
song which no pen can transcribe. Knowing that the awakening must
come, but unwilling to lose a moment of the dream, I, who with one
finger could have crushed the little thing, sat prizing it more and more,
as more and more its voice swept, and swelled, and rang; rang, till the
fire burst high in noble pyramids of flame; rang, till the candle flashed
in a thousand crystals; swelled, till the walls fell silently apart, and
showed that all this time I had