Page:Westward Ho! (1855).djvu/280

272 primeval orchard,—with acid junipa-apples, luscious guavas, and crowned ananas, queen of all the fruits, which they had found by hundreds on the broiling ledges of the low tufa-cliffs; and then all, sitting on the sandy turf, defiant of galliwasps and jack-spaniards, and all the weapons of the insect host, partook of the equal banquet, while old blue land-crabs sat in their house-doors and brandished their fists in defiance at the invaders, and solemn cranes stood in the water on the shoals with their heads on one side, and meditated how long it was since they had seen bipeds without feathers breaking the solitude of their isle.

And Frank wandered up and down, silent, but rather in wonder than in sadness, while great Amyas walked after him, his mouth full of junipa-apples, and enacted the part of showman, with a sort of patronzing air, as one who had seen the wonders already, and was above being astonished at them.

"New, new; everything new!" said Frank meditatively. "Oh, awful feeling! All things changed around us, even to the tiniest fly and flower; yet we the same; the same forever!"

Amyas to whom such utterances were altogether sibylline and unintelligible, answered by—

"Look, Frank, that's a colibri. You've heard of colibris?"

Frank looked at the living gem, which hung, loud humming, over some fantastic bloom, and then dashed away, seemingly to call his mate, and whirred and danced with it round and round the flower-starred bushes, flashing fresh rainbows at every shifting of the lights.

Frank watched solemnly awhile and then—

"Qualis Natura formatrix, si talis formata? Oh, my God, how fair must be Thy real world, if even Thy phantoms are so fair!"

"Phantoms?" asked Amyas uneasily. "That's no ghost, Frank, but a jolly little honey-sucker, with a wee wife, and children no bigger than peas, but yet solid greedy little fellows enough, I'll warrant."

"Not phantoms in thy sense, good fellow, but in the sense of those who know the worthlessness of all below.'

"I'll tell you what, brother Frank, you are a great deal wiser than me, I know; but I can't abide to see you turn up your nose as it were at God's good earth. See now, God made all these things; and never a man, perhaps, set eyes on them till fifty years agone; and yet they were as pretty as they are now, ever since the making of the world. And why do you think God could have put them here, then, but to please Himself"—and Amyas took off his hat—"with the sight of them? Now, I say, brother Frank, what's good enough to please God, is good enough to please you and me."

"Your rebuke is just, dear old simple-hearted fellow; and God forgive me, if with all my learning, which has brought me no profit, and my longings, which have brought me no peace, I presume at moments, sinner that I am, to be more dainty than the Lord Himself. He walked in Paradise among the trees of the