Little Peter: A Christmas Morality for Children of any Age

by Lucas Malet

  CHAPTER III.

  WHICH IMPROVES OUR ACQUAINTANCE WITH THE GRASSHOPPER MAN.

  'I am going to Nullepart on Sunday,' cried little Peter.

  '_Pfui!_ what a traveller,' answered the charcoal-burner. 'And how doyou go? In a coach and four, on the back of a fiery dragon, in thegiant's seven-league boots, or flying through the air with the wildducks, there, crying "Quack, quack, quack, we are all going southbecause the snow is coming? "'

  'I shall walk, of course, like a big boy,' said little Peter. 'But thesnow isn't coming just yet, is it?'

  'They all say it will be here in a day or two.'

  John Paqualin shook his head, and looked up at the sky. He was sittingon the rough, wooden bench set against the southern wall of his hut,with his back bent, and his elbows resting on his thin knees. LittlePeter climbed up on to the bench beside him. It was rather difficult,you see, because the bench was a very high one, to suit the length ofthe charcoal-burner's long legs.

  'Who are they?' asked the boy, as soon as he had settled himselfcomfortably. He tried to lean forward with his elbows on his knees likehis companion; but his short legs were dangling, and his feet were faroff the ground, and he did not find it altogether easy to keep hisbalance.

  'Who are they?' he asked.

  'Oh, the earth spirits, who live underground, and the air spirits,who wander up and down the sky. Look at the great arc of white lightthey are setting up in the north-east as a signal. And the wild ducks,flying overhead. And the moaning in the pine-trees. And Madelon, theold sow there; see how she runs about with her mouth full of grass,wanting to make herself a lair, because she sees the storm-wind coming.They are all telling what will happen. They are wiser than men. Theyknow beforehand. Men only know afterwards.'

  Paqualin paused a moment, and sat staring at Madelon, the old blacksow, with her floppety ears, as she ran to and fro, and groutedabout in the heaps of charcoal refuse and in the tumble-down gardenfence--half smothered in tall withered grass and weeds--grunting andbarking the while like one distracted.

  'Everything in the world talks to me,' he continued, speaking slowly.'All day long, all night long, the air is full of voices.'

  Peter wriggled himself a little further back on the bench, for, in theexcitement of conversation, he had slipped very near the edge of it andwas in great danger of falling head first on to the ground.

  'I don't hear them,' he said presently.

  Paqualin laughed. His laugh was cracked and shrill, like his voice; andPeter was always a trifle startled by it somehow.

  'Never hear them, little Peter,' he cried, 'never hear them. A few menwill call you a poet, but most men will only call you mad, if you do.'

  'What is mad?' asked Peter. He felt very much interested. 'Is it a goodor a bad thing?'

  The charcoal-burner looked round at the boy sharply, with his mouth alittle open. His strange eyes were glowing dull red. He waited a minutebefore replying.

  'Eh,' he said, 'what an innocent! Why, it is a good thing, of course.An excellent, splendid, glorious thing. Look at me, little Peter. I'lltell you a secret. Can you keep it? Here--quite close--I'll whisper--Iam mad--yes, that's the secret. A grand one. See all the blessings itbrings me. I live alone in the wood and burn charcoal.'

  'Yes,' said Peter, 'I should like that.'

  'I have no wife or child to bother me. On feast-days, when I was a lad,the pretty girls never plagued me to dance with them, or asked me tosteal kisses.' The charcoal-burner laughed again--'I am saved fromall sins of pride and vanity. Think what a gain!--for as I go downthe street, the very children tell me my faults, crying, "Look at thegrasshopper legs, look at the crook-back;" and the women shut theireyes and turn their heads away, saying, "Heaven avert the bad omen!What a frightful fellow!" Such observations, little Peter, are sharpdiscipline; and teach humility more thoroughly than any penance thepriest can lay on you. Oh, yes! no doubt it is a capital thing to bemad. It saves you a deal of trouble--nobody cares for you, nurses youwhen you're sick, feeds you when you're hungry, mourns for you when youdie.'

  Paqualin laughed again, and getting up stretched his long, ungainlylimbs, and shook himself till his hair hung like a red cloud about hisstooping shoulders.

  'Ah! ha, it's splendid,' he cried, 'all alone with the spiritsand voices, with the beasts, and the trees, and the rain, and thestarlight. No one to love you but the fire when you feed it withbranches, or the swine when you drive them back to their stye in thetwilight.'

  Now, to tell the truth, poor little Peter was becoming rather confusedand nervous, with all this wild, incomprehensible talk of thecharcoal-burner's. He had never seen his friend in this strange humourbefore. And he felt as much alarmed and embarrassed as he would havedone if that well-conducted animal Cincinnatus had suddenly turned uponhim, with bristling hair and a great tail, spitting and swearing, inthe middle of their innocent games of play. He sat very still, staringanxiously at his companion.

  But when Paqualin threw himself down on the bench again, and puttinghis lean, brown face very close to little Peter's, said to him with asort of cry:--

  'Think of it, think of it, child, nobody, day nor night, all throughthe long years of life, nobody ever to love you!'--the boy'sembarrassment changed into absolute fear, and he scrambled down off thebench in a great hurry, hardly able to keep from sobbing.

  'If you please, John Paqualin, I should like to go home to my mother,'he said; and then he trotted away as fast as he could along the blackcinder-path across the little garden.

  'Mother, mother,' echoed the charcoal-burner. 'Sweet, fair wife, andsweet mother! Have pity, dear Lord, on those who may have neither.'

  Then he got up, and walked after the child, in his awkward way, callinggently to him:--

  'Here, little mouse, come here. Don't run away so fast. There isnothing to hurt you.'

  Peter had nearly reached the garden gate; but there in the openingstood Madelon, the sow, grunting and snorting, her great jaws working,and her wicked, little eyes twinkling.

  'Come, come,' called Paqualin again, coaxingly. 'There are no moredisquieting secrets to tell you. Never fear. See now, I have a box ofnuts indoors, under my bed--beauties--beauties; will you try them?Cr-r-rack go the shells, out pop the nice kernels--crunch, crunch,crunch, between sharp, white, little teeth eating them all up. Eh! nutsare appetising, are they? You will not run away just yet, then, willyou, dear little mouse.'

  Now Peter would have felt a great deal safer at home it is true; butin the first place, there stood the hideous Madelon blocking the way,and he was very much afraid of her. And then in the second place, hedid not wish to be uncivil to his old friend the charcoal-burner. So,finally, he went back, and climbed up the high bench again.

  'I will not have any of those nuts, though, please,' he said decidedly.For he wished Paqualin to understand that it was not greediness butfriendship that made him return.

  'No nuts!' cried the charcoal-burner, smiling kindly at him. 'Eh, whata proud, little soul.'

  And then John Paqualin really became delightful. And as he and thelittle boy sat together in the shelter of the high pine-trees, andof the brown, wooden wall of the tumble-down dwelling-house behindthem, he told many most interesting stories. For, you see, thecharcoal-burner, perhaps from living so much alone, perhaps frombeing what some persons call 'mad,' knew a number of things whichyou could not find in the pages of the very largest Encyclopaedia ofUniversal Information--though they really are every bit as true ashalf the information you would find there. He knew all about theelves who live in the fox-glove bells; and the water-nixies who hauntthe stream side; and about the gnomes who work with tiny spades andpickaxes, searching for the precious metals underground. And he couldtell where the will-of-the-wisp gets the light for his lantern, withwhich he dances over bogs and marshy places, trying to lead weak-mindedand unscientific travellers astray; and he knew all about the pot offairy gold that stands just where the base of the rainbow touches theearth, and which moves away and away as you run to
find it, shiftingits ground forever, so that those who will seek it in the end come homehot, and breathless, and angry, and empty handed, for all their pains.And he could also tell of the old black dwarf who lives in a cave inthe heart of the forest, which no one can ever find, though they maysearch for it for a year and a day; and who, being a mischievous andill-conditioned dwarf, bewitches the cows so that they go dry; and thehens so that they steal their nests and lay their eggs in all mannerof holes and corners, instead of in the hen-roosts like right-minded,well-conducted fowls; and who rides the horses all night long in thestable, so that when the carter goes in, in the dewy morning, to givethem their fodder, he finds them trembling and starting and bathed insweat; and who turns the cream sour in summer, or sits on the handle ofthe churn--though you can't see him--so that though the good housewifeturns and turns, till her arms and back ache, and the heat stands indrops on her forehead, the butter will not come and the day's work iswell-nigh wasted.

  And Paqualin could tell the story, moreover, of the dirty little boy,Eli, who insisted on eating raw turnips and cabbages, and distressinghis friends and relatives by picking bits out of the pig pail, insteadof sitting up to table like a little gentleman, and who utterlyrefused to have his hair combed or his face washed:--

  'And, at last, one night,' said the charcoal-burner, 'as a punishmentfor all his nasty ways, the fairies came and turned him into a greatblack crow, which flew out of the bedroom window in the chilly dawn.You may often hear him now, little Peter, croaking in the tree-tops, orsee him skulking about the farmyard and gardens looking out for scrapsand refuse.'

  'How long ago was he turned into a crow?' asked Peter.

  'Eh, many and many a year ago,' answered the charcoal-burner. 'I sawhim only yesterday, and he has grown quite old and grey. But the timeof his probation will not be over yet awhile, for bad habits are slowto die, though quick enough to breed in us, little Peter. I throw hima crust of bread now and again, the poor old villain. I've a sort offellow feeling for him, you see, for I am an ugly, old vagabond too.'

  'Bless the child, there he is at last! Ah, my poor heart, how it beatswith all this running.'

  The speaker was Eliza. She stood on the other side of the tumble-downgarden fence, with her hand pressed to her side, and a shawl over herhead. She was breathing very hard. Eliza was one of those persons wholike to make the most of an injury.

  'Come home, Peter, come at once,' she went on. 'Don't you know it'shalf an hour past dinner-time? Here have I been trapesing half overthe country to find you--a pretty occupation for a respectable, young,servant woman like me, too. All the men were out, and nothing would dobut that I must go racing about like a wild creature, wasting good shoeleather in looking for you. Ah! my poor heart.'

  Eliza leant up against the fence and panted a little.

  As Peter got down off the bench, Paqualin bent forward and patted theboy's curly head.

  'Run away, little mouse,' he said, 'but come again some day and see me.'

  'Am I to wait here all night,' cried Eliza, 'for you, Peter? Have younot had enough yet of the society of his highness the charcoal-burner?No, no, don't speak to me,' she added, addressing Paqualin. 'I have nodesire to hold any communication with you. Why, merely seeing you asyou pass makes me squint for an hour afterwards. Come along, child.'

  And seizing Peter's fat, pudgy hand in her large, red one, Elizamarched him off at a sharp pace down the forest path.

  'Hey ho, hey ho, life is a bit long for some of us,' said thecharcoal-burner.