get,ninety-nine dinners, ninety-nine teas and suppers all in one, twohundred and ninety-seven meals to provide in one day?
"There were no more fishing excursions for him, no more big dinners, andhe worked and toiled to get ends to meet deep down in a potassium minein the darkest, dismalest corner of Coral Town. And everybody said--
"`It serves him right, the cruel wretch.'
"What a wonderful house that was which Pompey built for his Peggy!
"It was charmingly situated on the slope of a wooded hill, quite in thecountry. Pompey spent months in furnishing and decorating it, and hisgreatest pleasure was to superintend all the work himself. Such treesyou never saw as grew in the gardens and park, marine trees whose veryleaves seemed more lovely than any terrestrial flower, and they wereincessantly moving their branches backwards and forwards with a gentleundulating motion, as if they luxuriated in the sight of each other'sbeauty. Such flowers!--living, breathing flowers they were, and radiantwith rainbow tints, flowers that whispered together, and beckoned andbowed and made love to each other. Then those delightful rockeries,half hidden here and there amid the wealth of foliage, and there werecurious shells of brilliant colours that made music whenever there wasthe slightest ripple in the water, and whole colonies of the quaintestlittle animals that ever you dreamt of crept in and crept out of everyfissure or miniature cave in the rocks.
"At night the garden was all lighted up with phosphorescent lamps; butinside the palace itself, in the spacious halls, along the marblestaircases, and in the beautiful rooms, nothing short of diamond lightswould satisfy Pompey; for you must know that Pompey thought nothing toogood for Peggy. So each room was lighted up by a diamond, that shone inthe centre of the vaulted roof like a large and beautiful star. Some ofthese diamonds suffused a rosy light throughout the apartment, the lightfrom others was of a paley green, and from others a faint saffron, whilein one room the light from the diamond was for ever changing as you maysee the planet Mars doing, if you choose to watch--one moment it was abright, clear, bluish white, next a rainbow green, and anon changing todeepest crimson. This was a very favourite dining-hall with Pompey, forthe simple reason that no one could be sure how his neighbour looked.For instance, if a lady blushed, it did not look like a blush--oh dearno--but a flash of rosy light; if an old gentleman indulged rather muchin the pleasures of the table, and began to feel ill in consequence, nota bit of it, he was never better in his life--it was the bluish flashfrom the diamond; and so, again, if last night's lobster salad renderedany one yellow and bilious-looking, he could always blame the poorpretty diamond.
"In some rooms the chairs themselves were made of precious stones, andthe ottomans and couches built of a single pearl.
"At length everything was completed to Pompey's entire satisfaction, andhe had given any number of gay parties and balls, just by way of warmingthe house. Pompey flattered himself he had the best provisions in hiscellars and the best-trained servants in all Coral Town, and of coursenobody cared to deny that. These servants were nearly all of differentshapes: some were properly-made polyps; some rolled in when Pompeytouched the gong, rolled in like a gig-wheel without the rim, all legsand arms, and the body in the centre; some were merely round balls, andyou couldn't see any head or legs or arms at all till they stopped infront of you, then they popped them all out at once; some walked in,others hopped, one or two floated, and one queer old chap walked on thecrown of his head. If you think this is not all strictly true, you haveonly to take a microscope and look for yourself.
"`Heigho!' said Pompey one day, after he had finished a dinner fit toset before a polyp king, `all I now want to make me perfectly happy isPeggy. Peggy--Peggy! what a sweetly pretty name it is to be sure!Peggy!'
"And that came too; for if you wait long enough for any particular day,it is sure to come at last, just as whistling at sea makes the windblow, which it invariably does--when you whistle long enough.
"And never was such a day of rejoicing seen in Coral Town. The bellswere ringing and the banners all waving almost before the phosphorescentlamps began to pale in the presence of day.
"Then everybody turned out.
"And everybody seemed to take leave of his senses by specialarrangement.
"All but poor Peterie, who was left all by himself to work away in thedeep, dark potassium mine. The wedding took place in Peggy's father's--Popkins's--house. The old miser, miser no more though, was half crazywith joy. And nothing would satisfy him but to have one of the upperservants cooked for his breakfast. He didn't care, he said, whether itwas Jeames or the butler. So the butcher dressed the butler, and he wasstewed for his master's breakfast with sauce of pearls powdered inambrosia.
"And after the ceremony was performed, Pompey appeared on the balcony,clasping Peggy to his heart with ten arms, while he gave ten other handsto Popkins, his father-in-law, to shake as he cried--
"`Bless you, bless you, my children.'
"Then such a ringing cheer was heard, as never was heard before, or anytime since. Even Peterie heard it down in the darkling mine, swalloweda ball of potassium, and died on the spot. As soon as Peterie was dead,he (Peterie) said, `Well now, I wonder I never thought of that before;'because he at once grew up again into ten new polyps, who forthwith leftthe mine, joined the revellers, and shouted louder than all the rest.
"And when at last Peggy was in Peterie's house, when the idol of hislove became the light of his home, when he saw her there before him, soblooming and bonnie, he opened his twenty arms, and she opened _her_twenty arms, and--
"`Peggy!' cried Pompey; and--
"`Pompey!' cried Peggy; and--
"Down drops the curtain. It would be positively mean and improper tokeep it up one moment longer."
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE.
THE TALE OF THE "TWIN CHESTNUTS"; OR, A SUMMER EVENING'S REVERIE.
"Twilight grey Had in her sober livery all things clad: Silence accompanied; for beast and bird, They to their grassy couch; these to their nests Were slunk, all save the wakeful nightingale: Hesperus that led The starry host rode brightest, till the moon Unveiled her peerless light, And o'er the dark her silver mantle threw."
Milton.
Running all along one side of our orchard, garden, and lawn are a row oftall and graceful poplar trees. So tall are they that they may be seenmany miles away; they are quite a feature of the landscape, and tell theposition of our village to those coming towards it long before a singlehouse is visible.
These trees are the admiration of all that behold them, but, to my eye,there seems always connected with them an air of solemnity. All theother trees about--the spreading limes, the broad-leaved planes, and therugged oaks and elms--seem dwarfed by their presence, so high do theytower above them. Their tips appear to touch the very sky itself, theirtopmost branches pierce the clouds. Around the stem of each thebeautiful ivy climbs and clings for support; and this ivy gives shelterby night to hundreds of birds, and to bats too, for aught I know.
Their very position standing there in a row, like giant sentinels,surrounds them with an air of mystery to which the fact that they followeach other's motions--all bending and nodding in the same direction atonce--only tends to add. And spring, summer, autumn, or winter they areever pointing skywards. In the winter months they are leafless andbare, and there is a wild, weird look about them on a still night, whenthe moon and stars are shining, which it would be difficult to describein words. But sometimes in winter, when the hoar-frost falls andsilvers every twiglet and branch till they resemble nothing so much asthe snowiest of coral, then, indeed, the beauty with which they areadorned, once seen must ever be remembered.
But hardly has spring really come, and long before the cuckoo's dualnotes are heard in the glade, or the nightingale's street, unearthlymusic fills every copse and orchard, making the hearts of all that hearit glad, ere those stately poplars are clothed from tip to stem in robesof yellow green, and their myriad leaves dance and quiver i
n thesunlight, when there is hardly wind enough to bend a blade of grass. Asthe summer wears on, those leaves assume a darker tint, and approachmore nearly to the colour of the ivy that crowds and climbs around theirstems. The wind is then more easily heard, sighing and whisperingthrough the branches even when there is not a breath of air down on thelawn or in the orchard. On what we might well call still evenings, ifyou cast your eye away aloft, you may see those tree-tops all swayingand moving in rhythm against the sky; and if you listen you may catchthe sound of their leaves like that of wavelets breaking on a beach ofsmoothest sand.
I remember it was one still summer's night, long after sundown, for thegloaming star was shining, that we were all together on the rose lawn.The noisy sparrows were quiet, every bird had ceased to sing, therewasn't a sound to be heard anywhere save the sighing
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