Francolin

“ They all were good friends among themselves and with my tame hens, which used to prefer to lay their eggs in my tent and in those of the bearers. Sometimes I used to entrust some francolin eggs to 597 598 599 600 601 602 603 these hens. (Hardly any of the many beautiful East African species of francolins have so far been brought alive to Europe.) Once I had for weeks the pleasure of seeing some beautiful yellow-throated francolins (Pternistes leucosepus infuscatus, Cab.) running about perfectly tame among the other animals in camp. ”

“ The moment they get up, one has to stop instantly and let drive at them. Even then they will not always rise together, but in groups of two or three, necessitating very accurate shooting if a bag is to be obtained; which is not always possible when one is puffed by a two hundred yards’ sprint, and consequently panting heavily.
Yellow-throated francolins were fairly plentiful. They dodged in and out of the roots of the shrubbery with great agility, and were correspondingly difficult to hit. Pigeons also were very numerous.
While following the guinea-fowl I had rather a narrow escape. ”

“ Here my lady in her turn stopped his self-reproaches and thereafter, taking him by two curls of his great periwig, one either side, nodded lovely head at him.
"Though indeed, 'tis true sir, I was a little put out——"
"And no wonder!" he agreed. "Any other man would ha' known and understood. But I, being nought but a simple——" Again she sealed his lips, this time with one white finger.
"Nay, Major John sir—I do protest your grave simplicity hath a potent charm in a wilderness of wits and beaux! ”

“ When I come to Franconia, for example, I never can tell whether or not I shall find them; a piece of ignorance to be thankful for, like many another. The less knowledge, within limits, the more surprise; and the [230] more surprise—also within limits—the more pleasure. At present I can hardly put my head out of the door without hearing the wheezy calls of siskins and the importunate cackles of crossbills. They are among the commonest and most voluble inhabitants of the valley, and seem even commoner and more talkative than they really are because they are so incessantly on the move. ”

“ Now it was August—the year no longer young, and the birds no longer a choir. And when birds are neither in tune nor in flocks, it is almost as if they were absent altogether. It seemed to me, when I had walked a mile, that I had never seen Franconia so deserted.
An alder flycatcher was calling from a larch swamp; a white-throated sparrow whistled now and then in the distance; and from still farther away came the leisurely, widely spaced measures of a hermit thrush. When he sings there is no great need of a chorus; the forest has found a tongue ”

“ Those brief, deliberate phrases, breaking one by one out of the silence, lift the soul higher than any smooth-flowing warble could possibly do. Worship has no gift of long-breathed fluency. If she speaks at all, it is in the way of ejaculation: “Therefore let thy words be few,” said the Preacher,—a text which is only a modern Hebrew version of what the hermit thrush has been saying here in the White Mountains for ten thousand years.
One of the principal glories of Franconia is the same in spring as in autumn,—the colors of the forest. ”

“ The franklin laughed scornfully in his turn and said: "If we be simple, thou art a fool merely: are we not stronger and more than the Dry Tree? How should she not be taken? How should she not be known if she were walking about these streets? Have we no eyes, fool-carle?" And he laughed again, for he was wroth.
Ralph hearkened, and a kind of fear seemed griping his heart, so he asked the franklin: "Tell me, sir, are ye two speaking of a woman who is Queen of these strong-thieves?" ”

“ Farnol has been responsible for yet two other stories, The Money Moon and The Honourable Mr. Tawnish, but nothing has he written quite in the lines of The Chronicles of the Imp. Here indeed is a simple story with which we may pass a pleasant hour. I hope you will like the Imp and his Aunt as much as I have done. Alone among the successful authors of our generation--among those, that is, whose work runs into circulations of hundreds of thousands--Mr. Farnol wins me by his unpretentiousness. He has no gospel to preach, no crude law of life to enunciate. ”

“ But all things must have an end, alas!—even such a breakfast as this, and presently we were out in the sunshine again, standing beneath the weatherbeaten sign whereon three faded fishermen fished with faded rods in a faded stream; while away down the road we could see Peter already approaching with the carriage.
"And now I suppose you are going?" said Lady Warburton.
"There is a train at half-past ten," I answered.
"An' we are going too!" said Dorothy.
"Yes, we're quite ready, Uncle Dick!" cried the Imp, thrusting his pistols into his belt. ”

“ As a precautionary measure we proceeded to hide the ladder in a clump of rhododendrons hard by, and had but just done so when Benjamin uttered a cry of warning and took to his heels, while the Imp and I sought shelter behind a friendly tree. And not a whit too soon, for, scarcely had we done so, when two figures came round a corner of the house—two figures who walked very slowly and very close together.
"Why, it's Betty—the cook, you know—an' Peter!" whispered the Imp. Almost opposite our hiding-place Betty paused to sigh heavily and stare up at the moon. ”

“ The franklin he hath gone to roam, The franklin's maid she bides at home, But she is cold and coy and staid, And who may win the franklin's maid? There came a knight of high renown In bassinet and ciclatoun; On bended knee full long he prayed, He might not win the franklin's maid. There came a squire so debonair His dress was rich, his words were fair, He sweetly sang, he deftly played: He could not win the franklin's maid. There came a mercer wonder-fine With velvet cap and gaberdine; For all his ships, for all his trade He could not buy the franklin's maid. ”

“ But we not only agree with the sentiment, but admire the simple energy of the expression, when he says that "Franklin was the man of all others then alive who possessed in the greatest perfection the four grand requisites for the successful observation of Nature or the pursuit of literature,—a sound and great understanding, patience, dexterity, and an independent income." ”

“ Trapes, "yes, I opine as I'll come along wi' ye, Mr. Geoffrey."
Old Martin Finlay lay propped up by pillows, his great, gaunt, useless body seeming almost too large for the narrow bed wherein he lay, staring up great-eyed at Ravenslee—live eyes in a dead face.
"It's dying I am, sorr," said he faintly, "an' it's grateful is ould Martin for the docthers and medicine you've paid for. But it's meself is beyand 'em all—an' it's beyand 'em I'm goin' fast. She's waitin' for me—me little Maggie's houlding out her little hand to me—she's waitin' for me—beyand, Holy Mary be praised! ”

“ Surely a man might seek very far ere he found such another maid as this brown-cheeked, black-eyed village beauty.
"Good evening, Mr. Peter!" said she, dropping me a curtesy with a grace that could not have been surpassed by any duchess in the land; but, as for poor George, she did not even notice him, neither did he raise his curly head nor glance toward her.
"You come just when you are most needed, Prudence," said I, relieving her of the heavy basket, "for here be two hungry men."
"Three!" broke in the Ancient; "so 'ungry as a lion, I be!" ”

“ My other stable companion, Francillon, was of an exactly opposite temperament. Endowed with considerable imagination, which was happily exhibited in Pearl and Emerald, a novel which had been published in the Cornhill Magazine, he was by habit plodding and industrious, qualities which aroused in Purnell a degree of disapproval that sometimes almost verged on resentment.
“Now, Francillon,” he used to say, “loves work. I don’t. I hate it; I loathe it! People will tell you, my dear Carribus”—for so he often addressed me—“that to work is to pray. ”

“ Franklin," said the captain, "we have been more than six years together, it is true, but I didn't know you for a reader of faces. You are not a correct reader though. It's very far from being wrong. You understand? As far from being wrong as it can very well be. It ought to teach you not to make rash surmises. You should leave that to the shore people. They are great hands at spying out something wrong. I dare say they know what they have made of the world. A dam' poor job of it and that's plain. It's a confoundedly ugly place, Mr. Franklin. ”

“ He was indeed a very ancient man, though very nattily dressed from spotless collar to shiny patent leather shoes, a small, dandified, bright-eyed man whose broken nose and battered features bore eloquent testimony to long and hard usage.
"'Ook it!" he croaked, with square bony jaw fiercely outthrust. "We don't want no peanuts 'ere, d'j 'ear? 'Op off, 'ook it before I break every blessed bone in yer bloomin' body!"
"What, Old Un, don't you know me, either?"
"Lumme!" exclaimed the little old man, blinking beneath hoary brows. "Ho, lor' lumme, it's 'im! Blimy, it's the Guv'nor—'ow do, Guv!" ”

“ The pipe slipped from my fingers and shivered to pieces on the floor, and in that same fraction of time Sir Maurice had turned and leapt towards me; but as he came I struck him twice, with left and right, and he staggered backwards to the wall. He stood for a moment, with his head stooped upon his hands. When he looked up his face was dead white, and with a smear of blood upon it that seemed to accentuate its pallor; but his voice came smooth and unruffled as ever.
"The Mind Feminine is given to change," said he softly, "and—I shall return—yes, I shall come back. Smile, madam! Triumph, cousin! ”

“ Franklin loved the French, he could smile at their foibles, in dressing their hair so that they could not wear a hat, but were compelled to carry it under their arms; also in filling their noses with tobacco. “These,” said he, “are mere follies. There is nothing wanting, in the character of a Frenchman, that belongs to that of an agreeable and worthy man.”
It may perhaps be mentioned, as a defect in the character of Franklin, that when in France he could see nothing but the beautiful. ”

“ To our Franconia entomologist this honor came, by what seemed a poetic justice, in the Lepidoptera, the order in which she began her researches. Hers is a genus of moths. I trust they are not of the kind that “corrupt.”
Thinking how above measure I should be exalted in such circumstances, I am surprised [34] that she wears her laurels so meekly. Not that she affects to conceal her gratification; she is as happy over her genus, perhaps, as over the new édition de luxe of her most famous story; for an entomologist may be also a novelist, if she has a mind to be, as Charles Lamb would have said ”

“ When the thunder-clouds passed over the kite, the pointed wire drew the electric fire from them, and down the string to the key, from which electric fire was obtained. This experiment was made in 1752; and the news, as contained in Franklin’s simple letter to Mr. Collinson, spread over the world, and with various theatrical embellishments in the telling.
“Franklin,” writes one of his biographers, “cannot be ranked among the great men of science, the Newtons, the Keplers, or the Humboldts, Huxleys or Darwins. He belongs, rather, in the second class, among the minor discoverers. ”

“ During this harangue a slightly contemptuous look came on Maximilian’s face. He answered with spirit.
“I do not believe that any one need starve in Franconia. You are speaking unfairly. If I spend money in the ways you talk of, does it not all come back into the pockets of the people? I never heard that it was considered a crime to encourage art, or that a king was forbidden to have his private friends. And when you accuse me of not valuing the lives of men, you forget that during my reign Franconia has been kept from war. None of my subjects have been made to shed one drop of blood for me. ”

“ I reached down a favorite pipe, filled and handed it to him.
"Now," I began when it was well alight, "how long have you been in this state?"
"About a mouth now," he replied in a tone of dreary pleasure. We smoked for a while in silence.
"Tried flowers?" I inquired at length.
"Flowers!" he repeated.
"Certainly; they are the usual medium to start with I believe."
"Well," he hesitated, "I gave her a rose once."
"M—yes; but did you stick it in her hair?"
The Cherub gasped. "Lord, no!" he exclaimed. ”

“ That mortal man should thus be taught to disarm the clouds of heaven, and almost snatch from his hand 'the sceptre and the rod!'"
The ancients would, no doubt, have enrolled among their gods, the author of so wonderful an invention. Indeed the reputation which Franklin acquired by it, not only in America, but in Europe also, far transcended all conception. His lightning rods, or as the French called them, his "paratonerres," erected their heads, not only on the temples of God and the palaces of kings, but also on the masts of ships and the habitations of ordinary citizens. ”

“ Ben, the gardener's boy, has one with the littlest, teeniest pink nose you ever saw."
"Certainly a ferret has its advantage," I mused. "A ferret will not frown upon one one minute and flash a dimple at one the next. And then, again, a ferret cannot be reasonably supposed to possess an aunt. There is something to be said for your idea after all, Imp."
"Why, then, let's be pirates, Uncle Dick," he said with an air of finality. "I think I'll be Scarlet Sam, 'cause I know all about him, an' you can be Timothy Bone, the boatswain." ”