with dark
hair and eyes; while father `belonged to Pharaoh's lean kine,' as the
country folks say, being tall, and thin, and wiry, with as little flesh on
his bones as a scaffolding pole. In this respect, I may add, he was said
to resemble all the Bowlings ever mentioned in history, up to the time
of our remote ancestor, the celebrated Tom Bowling of Dibdin's song,
who `went aloft' more than a hundred years ago.
Aye, she was a pretty little girl was my sister Jenny, though but a mere
slip of a thing to me, who almost stood a head and shoulders over her,
and she, the mite, quite a year my elder; but, what is more to the
purpose, she was as good as she was pretty, taking all the cares of the
household off mother's hands and winding her, aye and father too,
round her tiny fingers in whatever way she pleased when the fancy took
her.
I used to like best seeing her, however, amongst the birds.
We lived in a queer little double-fronted, old-fashioned cottage near
Bonfire Corner. This is close up against the dockyard wall, and not far
from the Marlborough Gate, you must know, if you be a stranger to the
old town of Portsmouth and that labyrinth of narrow streets lying to the
north of Hardway and the harbour. Yes, a labyrinth of rectangular rows,
arranged in parallel lines and all precisely alike, of twin two-storied,
russet-bricked houses of the same size and pattern, all looking as if they
had been turned out of a mould, and all of them having little projecting
circular bay-windows of wood, mostly English live oak, or teak from
the Eastern Indies. All were painted green alike, and furnished with
diamond panes, or bottle glass with bull's-eye centres, of the last
century; and all, likewise, had similarly retreating doorways, sheltered
by timber pent-houses to keep off the rain, access to them being gained
by three or four perpendicular steps, so as to avoid flooding from the
rivers of mud that covered the cobblestone roadway in wet weather,
overflowing the narrow gutters, and narrower flagging along the side
that did duty for a pavement.
Attached to our cottage was an out-house which ran flush along the
side of Beacon Street, fencing off our bit of a garden from the road and
an adjacent tenement; and this out-house, mother, who was of an
inventive nature, with a strong proclivity for money-making, had
converted into a shop for the sale of all sorts of birds, both foreign and
native born, and pigeons, in addition to sundry specimens of the rarer
species of poultry.
Mother said she had been forced into the trade from the necessity of her
having to do `something for a living' after grandfather's death, on
account of her having us two children to keep, as well as herself, on
only the allotment pay of father, who was away at sea at the time; but,
in a weak moment she once confessed she had started the bird-keeping
business more for the sake of having her hands employed than anything
else, she not being partial to needlework, like most west-country
women, while she was particularly fond of birds!
Not only that, she was certainly accustomed to their feathery ways, and
learned in the art of their breeding and bringing up, even from the nest;
for Jenny and I could bear witness to having seen her often enough
poking pap with a stick down the outstretched throats of gaping young
blackbirds and thrushes as soon as they had sufficiently developed
beaks to open, and coddling up shivering little canaries and larklets in
flannel before the fire when their proper parents would not attend to
their infantile needs--mother tenderly feeding them with the point of a
camel's-hair brush dipped in egg paste and weak wine and water before
they were old enough even to `peep' or flutter their nascent little wings.
Bye-and-bye, when my sister got big enough, she took charge of all this
part of the business, and saved mother a world of trouble, as she
thankfully acknowledged, without being a bit jealous of her greater
success with the fledgelings; for Jenny handled the little things as
tenderly as if she were a canary herself, and was so fortunate in her
treatment of them, medical and otherwise, that she never lost even the
most delicate of her bird baby patients, nursing them through their
various ailments, and rearing them triumphantly up to the full
perfection of their plumage and song.
You should only have seen her amongst them of a morning when I had
the job of cleaning out their cages, while Jenny gave them all fresh
food and water!
They did not pay much attention to me, save to flutter
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