Page:Once a Week Volume V.djvu/389

 382 pulled more vigorously? No; there is no mistaking a gentle rustling among the trees outside; a soft sound, scarcely of wind, but whisperings of its approach. A breeze comes in rather suddenly, in a great whiff, but silently, as if trying to hide itself, and panting quietly after a long chace. It is followed presently by another, cool and delicious. I see very little of the moon now, for the black spirits are tumbling over it in quick succession; the thunder rumbles louder and oftener than before—almost unceasingly,—and there is a general sensation of motion out of doors. I must be moving too: so I get up and look out of the window. The breeze is freshening every moment, and takes liberties with my hair. Something cold and fat falls upon my cheek. I wipe it off: it is wet: but soon there is another—two—three—and the gravel outside begins to sound as if somebody were throwing peas upon it. Yes! there can be no mistake any longer! It is coming down at last—good hard-pelting rain; and the wind dances about, wild with delight; and the heavy drops, as they strike the hard ground, seem to jump back a foot or so, with astonishment, one half imagines, at finding it so parched and dry.

What a commotion outside! All the horses are beginning to neigh, and a great many have escaped from their picket-ropes, and are running about kicking one another, in their half-frightened ecstacy; and the goats are ba-a-ahing amazingly; and the fowls express their gratification in hoarse chuckles; we shall soon hear the elephants too, with their cracked voices. All nature is in a bustle; there is hurrying to and fro, and excitement among the native servants, who all sleep out of doors, and who are now taking up their beds and running under cover, calling each other loudly by name; and the syces are busy catching the loose horses.

Night, indeed! Night, perhaps, with the enemy, and a panic amongst us; but no common night, with all this noise and hurried movement, and rustling and hiss of rain.

It is pelting down now, a dense, cold sheet of rain; the gutters are beginning to fill, and there is a pleasant bubbling sound of water as it gushes along the sides of the paths and in self-made drains, improvising small waterfalls and cascades. I can hear little bits of earth falling with a splash into the stream, as it goes about undermining banks. The rain comes down more like an opened sluice, than rain as we know it in England. With the help of the thick black clouds it has put out the moon altogether, and the thunder is playing a bass accompaniment the while.

So about this time I retire from the opened window, and find that the thermometer has fallen twelve degrees, and go to bed. The hunted breeze has come out of the corner of the room ere this, and, grown quite bold, has entered into a little, not unpleasant plot with the punkah, to blow me out of bed. A small hurricane is raging in my apartment; discipline is at an end among my loose papers, which are engaged now in a paper chace; the venetian shutters are flapping their wings impatiently, anxious to join them, and I half-expect every moment to hear them crow; and things generally are being blown about and away, and have assumed a disordered aspect. But one thing is not blown away,—the pleasant reflection that the furnace doors have been opened and discovered us still alive; that the fiery summer days are over; and that the rains have set in at last!

a quaint book of simple fairy lore, I hold remembrance of an ancient story,— How tricksy Mab or sweet Titania bore Brave children, in the golden days of yore, To some prowd knight renowned for deeds of glory.

Brave children—daughters pure and gentle-hearted, A troop of sons high-honoured and strong-souled; For whose sweet sake the father would have parted With all his earthlier children, and have marted, To dower these, his fame and lands and gold.

But these brave bastard children, strange to say, (Though human-souled) in outward form and feature, Were incorporeal like their mother-fay; Impalpable to touch of grosser clay, Invisible to eyes of earthly creature.

By some sixth sense, some strange clairvoyant power, Our knight was conscious of this fairy brood; And watched his spotless daughters bud and flower, His sons to fullest moral stature tower; And kept the sacred secret as he could.

And still, methinks, in these prosaic days Like wonders happen. Many a sober mortal, Whom none suspects of such improper ways, Holds stolen assignations with the fays In some heart-chamber with a secret portal.

Heart-chamber? Heart establishment! more stately Than Belgrave mansions where the matrons dwell. Mab driveth in her tiny brougham sedately; In her boudoir elf-footmen delicately Serve sweet Titania, as the poets tell.

Here are the fairy children born and bred— King Priam’s self had never such a nursery: How they are bathed and swathed, and put to bed, With what ambrosial pap the rogues are fed, Space lacks to tell in lines so brief and cursory.

Some are but weakly babes, and die in teething, Of measles some,—half-mortal babes can die. These fade away, in their decease bequeathing What little strength they had to those still breathing, So that the remnant lustier wax thereby.

Here these love-children dwell, and day by day From stage to stage, like earthlier children, growing— First word, first step, each progress on the way That all must tread who have a touch of clay— They set their father’s pride in triumph glowing.

Ah me! we men respectable and portly, Whom none suspect of having souls at all; Who speak dull platitudes in accents courtly, Or mouldy truths sententiously and shortly; Whose young romance seems dead beyond recall;

We ancient fogies, whom the youngsters think Mere pulpy husks with no informing kernel, Whose only functions are to eat and drink, Write cheques alive, make wills upon the brink Of death—we have our mysteries internal.