The Story of a Dewdrop | Page 6

went down on

their knees; others doffed their caps; others smiled bewitchingly; others
could do nothing but waft sweet perfumes. There were even bands of
very varied music and musicians, all assisting with their efforts in
swelling the Queen's Anthem. The brook, though it had sung all night,
and had need of a little respite, seemed to say--"No, I shall go warbling
on; she shall have my very best treble of a ripple." And then there were
minor performers in this nature-choir. The Blackbird and Redbreast,
Goldfinch and Linnet, and Chaffinch, each took part with striking
effect. Even the Swallow in his own quiet way twittered, and the
Tomtit chattered, and the Beetle droned, and the Bee hummed, and the
big Dragon-fly, in armour of brightest cobalt, whirred; and the
Grasshopper, poor fellow! did his very uttermost,--he chirruped, he
could do no more. The Butterfly, who could not raise a single note,
came out in his best plush court-dress of gold, vermilion, and blue,
dainty little silent outrider that he is, waking up any exceptional
sleepers. He carried, truth to say, his zeal sometimes too far; as when I
saw him unjustly reproaching the Foxglove for having bells and not
ringing them, a thing they were never meant to do. Even the Spider
hung his silver-tissued web from spray to spray; as if he had weaved a
gossamer mantle, in case his Queen might like to use it in the chill of
early dawn. (See Frontispiece.)
Well, the latter--I mean the Queen--at last came to a pause, and, with
most radiant grace in her countenance, she put her hand up to her
crown, and took out the diamond. There was a little pet of a crimson
cloud that happened to be floating past at the moment. She laid the
lustrous gem on this roseate pillow; and then, slowly and gradually, she
and all her retainers, in ghostly shape, vanished clean from sight.
* * * * *
But what, you will say, has all this to do with our friend the Lark? His
quick little eye had discerned what your dull sight and mine could not.
He had watched everything I have now described. How indeed could he
miss seeing that flashing speck of light lying so daintily on its cushion
of state? No wonder he circles and zigzags, and does bird-homage to
the brightest gem of the Regalia. Up, down--hither, thither--just as I

have already told, doing obeisance in every possible and conceivable
way; till at last, poising himself immediately above, fluttering with all
his might, and settling himself in the fixed attitude in which the lark
family are such adepts, he mustered up courage and said--
"Pretty sparkling thing! I know what you are. You are a rare diamond
just taken from the crown of the Queen of the Morning. But, I confess,
you look, too, very like the Dewdrop I spied at a distance, a few hours
ago, on the tip of a rose-leaf."
"What a capital guesser you are, tiny minstrel," was the reply; "but you
had better leave me with my diamond name, at all events for the
present. I shall not say whether some scientific bird-winged
philosophers are right or wrong when they aver that, though the Queen
of the Morning borrowed me, I am really and truly a jewel from the
crown of the Sun; that when he took off his royal robes last evening, to
lay his head on his nightly pillow, I dropped out of his crown, and
tumbled down to the earth. I may tell you, however, confidentially (just
in a whisper, you know)," added the brilliant speaker, "that though they
call me Diamond, I like quite as well the name with which God's
beautiful mist baptized me, that of Dewdrop. But I have brief time
(indeed no time) to converse further with you now. You have seen, a
short while ago, how the Queen of the Morning vanished. Will you be
astonished when I tell you that I am about to do the very same myself?
I am going," it continued, "to my Palace yonder" (an extra gleam, in the
absence of a finger, was its own special way of pointing upwards). "I
have said my Palace--I should rather perhaps say, my Home. We may
meet," it added, "pretty soaring warbler, on the way to it. But please
leave me now."
What I have said of the Thrush was true also of the Lark. He was a
peculiarly biddable and discreet bird, and when he got a hint he always
took it. Moreover, the Dewdrop had spoken so courteously (he thought
condescendingly) to him, he would not for the world intrude his
company longer than desired. The other evidently wished to be all
alone, to pack up and prepare for this