The Story of a Dewdrop | Page 6

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 great and distant journey.
So the Lark plunged down to the stream among the alders to bathe his wings and refresh himself. After the lustrations were duly completed, up again he rose like an arrow into the bright, blue sky. Says he to himself, "I shall certainly be on the sharp out-look for that ascent of the Dewdrop. I can at all events be a silent spectator, if my services cannot otherwise be of