Part 3

We must go back to the slowly-assembling party by the roadside. Nurse was still in the tree, for, warned by Jessie’s fate, she thought it better to stay quite still till plenty of help arrived, which it did in a wonderfully short time; for long before we thought Joe could even have reached the Moneague he had returned, accompanied by every officer and soldier in the place, and a couple of carts with mattresses and pillows inside, and, best of all, some large stone bottles of water, for we were all dreadfully thirsty. How kind everybody was! I can remember a big soldier attempting to tidy me a little, and saying, ‘Why, little lady, you’ll frighten your poor Mamma to death if she sees you like this;’ and he actually contrived to make me more presentable by arranging my hair, tying my sash properly, rough, kindhearted nurse that he was. But all these were trifles compared to the great anxiety every one felt about poor Aunt Nelly’s fate. After a hurried search among the upper terraces of the steep mountain-side and along the track of broken boughs caused by the rapid descent of the carriage and horses, it was resolved that a party of soldiers, Papa, and the surgeon should go quite down to the bottom of the precipice and search for her. I do not remember how long they were away, I only know I was very unhappy; for all my first excitement had died out before the real trouble and sorrow around me. I was so frightened to see Mamma’s pale face and closed eyes. Nurse, who had been extricated from her lodging among the topmost branches of the tree, was giving her something out of a teaspoon, and whenever I came near she said, half-crossly, ‘Now go away, Miss; pray go and play with Miss Jessie:’ but Jessie and I had no heart to play; we were getting very hungry and sleepy, and thoroughly terrified at the position of affairs.

The most vivid of all my recollections of that sad afternoon is hearing a soldier say that he saw the exploring party returning, and he added, ‘The young lady is alive too, I am certain.’ I rushed off to Mamma with the news, but I suppose, as usual, I managed to tell it in the worst way, for my joy was damped by Nurse saying in great anger, ‘There, Miss, you’ve made your poor Mamma faint again; now go away, _do_.’ So I returned, just in time to see Aunt Nelly, who had been brought up in a shawl carried by soldiers, lying on the white dusty road, her pretty dress all torn and soiled, her dark curls dabbled in blood, the kind, smiling eyes closed, and her face as white as the handkerchief with which the doctor was preparing to make a bandage. I am told that I gave such a shriek of terror and dismay that my voice roused her from the long swoon in which they had found her; and nothing which happened yesterday is half so plain before me as her bewildered face, as she unclosed her eyes, and looked at me. To the surprise of every one, she almost immediately raised herself on her elbow—and, oh! how well I remember the deep, horrible cleft in her head which I then saw!—and, putting up the other hand to clear away the blood which was streaming over her face, said feebly, ‘My hair is getting into my eyes, I wish you would keep it away,’ and then sank back again. I think my story is getting so much too dismal that I must hasten to tell you she is alive and well at this moment, and the only lasting consequence of her terrible fall was that the hair which grew where the cut on her head had been turned quite grey. It does not matter now, for all the rest matches it, but for many years this long thick lock of silver was very conspicuous among her brown curls. Now that I have eased your minds a little, I will go back to that dreadful evening. We were packed in the carts and conveyed to the barracks, where everything was done to make us as comfortable as circumstances would admit of; but I do not remember much after my fright at the first glimpse of my dear pretty aunt with her head cut open. I have been told since that she had passed her arm inside the long strap at the side of the carriage, just as she knew we were going to have an accident, thinking to save herself from tumbling out; but when they found her at the bottom of the precipice she was lying near the dead horses, and the surgeon said he fancied the blow on her head must have been given by a kick from one of them. The carriage was broken into little pieces, so small that each bit could be carried up the hill again in a man’s hand. The poor horses were frightfully battered and cut, but fortunately they were quite dead, and so was a little pet spaniel which I have forgotten to mention, and which had been lying under the boxseat during the journey. Our own escape was so marvellous, and we were so thankful to God for preserving our lives, that I never heard a regret wasted on either horses or carriage, though I mourned in secret for a long time over the sad fate of poor beautiful Whitefoot and Firefly.

Aunt Nelly lay for many days dangerously ill, and the moment she could bear the voyage Papa sent her, Jessie, Nurse, and me back to England, where we remained till I grew up into a tall young lady of sixteen, when we returned to Jamaica and spent two very happy years there. Another time I intend to tell you all about our pets and the sort of life we led; but before I finish for the present I think I must add one great piece of naughtiness which I committed before we left Jamaica with Aunt Nelly. The curious part of the story is that I had no intention of being naughty, nor any idea that my experiment would have been better left untried.

To make you understand how the idea came into my head I must explain that I was very tall for my age, whilst Jessie was extremely short. She was always longing and wishing to be as tall as I was, and asking everybody if they did not think she was growing bigger; but still she remained a little fat dot of a thing, whilst Nurse declared that my frocks had to be let down an inch every week. I was very sorry that Jessie remained so small, and helped her to remedy the defect upon every opportunity. I had already got into trouble for abstracting a pot of pomade from Mamma’s dressing-case. I hid it under my pillow, and as soon as Nurse had taken away the light at night, slipped out of my little bed, felt my way to Jessie’s crib, and, with her full consent and approbation, rubbed her all over from her head to her feet with pink pomatum. I leave you to imagine the state of the sheets, &c. in the morning. When I was brought up for judgment and sentence before the authorities, my only defence was that I had heard Papa say, a day or two before, speaking of this wonderful pomatum, ‘Why, I believe it would make even little Dot grow.’ This was quite enough to determine me to try the effect on her. However, I was only lectured and dismissed without any punishment, but unfortunately with the idea more firmly rooted than ever in my silly little head, that it was my duty, to devise some way of helping Jessie to grow taller.

It must have been several weeks after this failure that, upon the occasion of a large garden-party in the afternoon, Jessie and I found ourselves wandering about the grounds of a friend’s house, in our best frocks, waiting for the arrival of some other children who were to play with us. We believed ourselves to be very smart indeed; and so we were for those days; but I think if you saw two little girls playing in the square now, dressed exactly as we were, you would think they looked very odd. We had on very pale pink silk petticoats, over which were muslin pelisses—I remember mine had a frill round my waist!—pink drawn silk bonnets (hats had never been heard of for little girls), very big, hot, and uncomfortable, tied tightly under our chins, muslin trousers with lace and work round our ankles, and pink silk boots! Fancy running about the grass in pink silk boots. However, Nurse pronounced that we looked very nice indeed, and I tried hard to believe her, though I had great doubts on the subject. We were particularly told by her not to go off the smooth gravelled walks (on account of these horrid boots); so we considered that we were strictly keeping within the limits of the law when we followed a narrow path which led us round rather to the back of the house, among thick shrubs. Here we stopped to examine a deep hole which had just been dug for a large plant. There was a wateringpot full up to the brim standing temptingly near it, and also a spade. I cannot recollect what led to the subject, except that hardly an hour ever passed without an allusion to it, but I remember Jessie peering into the hole and saying wistfully, ‘Oh! I wish I could grow like the plants!’ Immediately I felt a strong conviction that at last we had hit upon the only way to improve her tiny stature; so I said eagerly, ‘Well, I don’t see why you shouldn’t, if only you could be planted: but perhaps Nurse might not like the trouble of digging the hole, or of watering you afterwards.’ These were the only objections which occurred to me; and when Jessie timidly said, ‘I wonder if that hole is big enough for me?’ I immediately felt that it would be absolutely wrong to miss such an opportunity of trying an experiment, so I urged her to get in. She did not want much persuasion, but jumped down into the hole—I think I see her pretty little anxious face now, peeping out from the frightful heavy bonnet-cap of bows of ribbon and net which framed it. I asked her how she felt, and she said it was very cool to her feet; so I directly made up my mind to carry out the idea thoroughly, and assured her, as if I knew it to be a fact, _that_ was the first symptom of growth, and I proceeded to tilt the big wateringpot with all my strength (for I could not possibly lift it), until a stream began to trickle down upon the pink silk boots. Jessie said, with a little gasp, half of fright, “It’s very cool and nice, but I’m afraid Nurse won’t like it on account of my boots;” so I comforted her by assurances that when Nurse saw how tall she had grown she would not mind it. Soon the water was all poured in, and it was too late for any hesitation about the fate of the boots, or of the lace frills of the little trousers and the skirt of her pelisse which were hopelessly splashed and muddy. We both felt quite reckless now, and I proposed to shovel in the loose earth, giving as a reason that plants required earth as well as water to make them grow. In a wonderfully short time I had really planted my poor little sister up to her shoulders, and jumped upon the earth to press it in, just as I had seen the gardener do. Jessie was wonderfully brave about it, and I encouraged her by assurances of my belief in her being a little taller already. However, it promised to be rather a long process, and I felt too restless to wait and watch; so, entreating Jessie not to be afraid, but to be patient and quiet, I gave her a kiss and went away. No sooner had I lost sight of my victim than all my courage vanished, and my troublesome conscience began upbraiding me. I was in such a dreadful mess myself that I did not dare to go near the front of the house, but spent a dismal afternoon hiding behind the shrubs, afraid to go back to where Jessie was planted. At last Nurse swooped down upon me, terrible in her wrath, speechless with horror. Even my tongue was dumb when I saw poor pale little Jessie, who had been discovered, and with some difficulty dug up. I remember feeling bitterly convinced that she had not grown in the least; she appeared to be weeping tears of mud, for my gardening had splashed her face a good deal with earth, and her fast-falling tears melted it all. She was crying for the punishment which she knew would overtake me, much more than for her own misery and discomfort, and I certainly would have cried for myself if I could have foreseen that for three long days and nights I was to be locked up in a spare dressing-room. Nurse came twice a day with a large piece of bread and a jug of water, but her countenance was too awful for me to dare to speak to her. I was quite as miserable as I deserved to be, and the only ray of comfort I had was when Jessie managed to escape and rush to my door, flinging herself down in a perfect agony of grief outside it. We never had time for more than a word or two before she was recaptured and carried off; but I heard with additional sorrow that she was not supposed to be a bit taller, though she had been planted for three hours when she was discovered and released.

PART II.

I have no more pieces of naughtiness to relate, for at the time this story begins ten years had passed, and I had returned to Jamaica a tall young lady of sixteen. Jessie was, as you may remember, nearly two years younger; she had certainly grown taller, but was still only a little creature, with large dark eyes, which had a most beseeching look in them, as if she was asking everybody to take care of her. I have never seen anyone with such beautiful hair: it was dark brown, and in such quantity, that when she was sitting on an ordinary chair to have it brushed, it touched the ground. She was always singing, just like a bird; and it used to be a great puzzle to me how she could possibly remember the words of all her songs. Jessie and I had one very decided taste in common, and that was our great love of pets of all kinds, especially of birds. Whilst we lived in England we never could sufficiently indulge this hobby, for the schoolroom maid rebelled against taking care of more than one cage of canaries, so we were obliged to be satisfied with that; but when we returned to our beautiful summer home in the mountains of Jamaica, we collected a little zoological garden around us in a few months, and it is about these pets I am now going to tell you.

I am sure you will like me to begin, as always, at the very beginning, so I shall first mention that, as soon as we were all settled in our mountain cottage, Jessie and I begged Mamma to allow our rooms to be changed to the only two which were downstairs. In hot countries the sleeping rooms are always upstairs, partly to be cooler, and partly to avoid the risk of venomous insects; but there was no danger of heat where our little summer home was built, for the nights were always cold enough to allow us to use a blanket; and as for the scorpions, centipedes, ants, &c., we thought we could protect ourselves against them. We had discovered two charming little rooms side by side, downstairs, opening with French windows on a verandah, the pillars of which were covered with beautiful creepers: from this verandah you stepped on a lawn sheltered from the sun by a grove of orange and mango trees, towards the south-east, and beyond that lay the garden, which sloped down to a long valley, divided into paddocks of the tall, bright green Guinea grass (so called because the seed was brought from Guinea, on the coast of Africa), of which the cows and horses were so fond.

The chief reason Jessie and I begged for these rooms was, that the verandah and the adjoining trees would be so nice for all our pets, and after some hesitation and a great many warnings, against snakes, scorpions, and other insects, Mamma at last consented to allow us to change; so for a few days we were happy, and busy moving all our absurd little possessions down to their new quarters, which had hitherto only been used by gentlemen visitors, and were generally called the ‘Bachelor rooms.’ It took us some time to arrange our pictures, books, and ornaments to our own satisfaction; and dear Mamma was often called upon to give her opinion on our devices.

But the very first thing to be attended to was the comfort of the pets, and they certainly must have approved of the change. The parrots at once established themselves in a large tree, and we watched them with great delight clambering about its branches, nibbling at the fruit, and chattering incessantly. They were nine in number, and had been brought to us at different times in the nest some months before, when their beaks were quite soft, and we had to feed them on boiled rice and sugar. Nothing could be tamer than these birds were; when we sat down in our rocking chairs in the verandah, they used to scramble and flutter out of their tree, and come waddling towards us in a great hurry with their toes turned in, clambering up the arms of the chairs in the hope of getting a piece of sugar cane. I am sorry to say, however, that not one of our parrots could speak at all well; they whistled and chattered incessantly in their own way, but it was very difficult to teach them even a word or two, and their voices were thick and husky. It required a great many lessons before the cleverest of them could learn so much as a bar of one of Jessie’s songs; and when he began to practise, all the other birds had a most insulting way of stopping their own chatter to listen to his ‘tra-la-la,’ and going off into peals of laughter, mingled with the negro exclamations of ‘Hi hi,’ or ‘My king!’ This conduct affronted Master Bully—that was his name, bestowed on account of his tyrannical and greedy nature—very much, and he always ceased the song directly the laughter began, and sat sulkily ruffling up his feathers. They were all of the same kind, these parrots; rather small, of a blight emerald-green colour, with a few red and blue wing feathers, and a gay yellow top-knot; their beaks were quite black, and so were their tongues. Their wings were cut to keep them from joining the flocks of wild parrots which constantly flew overhead. Their greatest enemies were the owls, who used to swoop upon the poor sleeping Polly and carry it off at night; we lost two in this way before we discovered the cause, but then we taught them to go to roost every evening in a large wooden cage under shelter of the verandah, the door of which was securely fastened, and our noisy pets lived to a good old age. It is the custom in Jamaica to have a cup of coffee brought to your bedside every morning at six o’clock, and as soon as our black maid ‘Rosetta’ had awakened us, she used to open the French windows into the verandah, unfasten the door of the parrots’ cage, and place a saucer of bread and milk on the threshold where we could see it. In a moment all the parrots were round it chattering and gobbling it up; Bully had a bad habit of getting _into_ the saucer and trampling the food into a mess, so Jessie and I were obliged to take it by turns to get up and drive him away and see fair play. As soon as they had finished their breakfast, they set off as fast as they could waddle to an enormous shallow pan of water, which was sunk to the level of the ground and filled twice a day with fresh water. It was such fun to watch them splashing and dashing the water over each other, enjoying their bath thoroughly; then they betook themselves to the shelter of the trees, and there dried and pruned their feathers, spending the remainder of their time in eating fruit and clambering about. In the middle of the day they generally took a nap, and the quiet which reigned during that time was most remarkable.

We had also a cage full of love-birds, a sort of paroquet which comes from Carthagena in South America; but though these pretty little things were very affectionate to each other and to us, I must confess they were rather stupid pets. They sat close together in pairs all day long, occasionally uttering a little chirrup and caressing each other with their tiny bills; but they either had very delicate constitutions, or else they were very greedy, for they all died one after another from fits caused by over-eating themselves and swallowing their food in a hurry. One love-bird of a stronger digestion than the rest survived some months, but he also had a daily fit in the middle of his dinner. I was so accustomed at last to this performance, that it was quite a surprise to me one day to observe him lying by the side of his little saucer longer than usual, and to find on a closer examination that he had shared the fate of his brothers and sisters.

Jessie’s especial favourites among our birds were her own white doves, and certainly they were lovely creatures, so soft and snowy, perfectly tame, and never so happy as when nestling close to their beloved little mistress. I have often thought since what a pretty picture might have been made of Jessie, in her white dress, seated on the marble step of the verandah, its arch festooned with creepers forming a frame for her figure, her dark hair twisted into a thick coronet round her head, with generally a wild flower stuck into it, her guitar with its broad riband lying on her knee, and these white doves on her shoulder, listening apparently with great attention to her sweet voice _crooning_ some quaint old ballad for the delight of the younger children who were seated on the grass at her feet. These doves met, however, with a most tragical fate, and I must tell you all about it.