From the very moment he mentioned the word "c.o.c.katoos," I felt somewhat ashamed of myself.
So back I went, and shared the shepherd"s soup, and we were soon enjoying a very interesting conversation.
I told him all about myself and caravan, and he explained who he was. A shepherd by choice, because a lover of Nature. A wizard according to some, a poet according to others, because his verses which, he said, were as rough as the heather and the granite rocks on the hillside, found _entree_ to the Glasgow papers. After supper, he lit a great oil-lamp: we had hitherto had only the fire-light.
Then he pulled aside a screen, and lo! and behold, a dozen at least of cages, each containing a c.o.c.katoo, and one a starling.
"What is it? What _is_ it?" said this latter.
"Nothing much, d.i.c.k. But you"ve frightened this stranger."
"Strange!" said d.i.c.k.
The old shepherd opened the cage-door, and out flew the bird, and straight on to the supper-table.
"Professor d.i.c.k," said my host, "won"t say another word till he has finished his meal."
"Professor d.i.c.k, you call him?"
"Yes, and I may as well tell you at once how I live and how I manage to get warm clothing, good food, and plenty of books."
"I see your library is a most extensive one," I put in.
"It is, for a poor man. I am a hermit by choice; I live all alone in these wilds; I am rent-free, because I have the charge of sheep, and I dearly love the solitudes around me.
"The house or hut I occupy I call Professor d.i.c.k"s Academy. d.i.c.k is my all in all. The collie comes next in my affections.
"But d.i.c.k maintains us."
"d.i.c.k maintains you?"
"Yes, you see all these c.o.c.katoos? Well, d.i.c.k trains them all to speak.
And he trains them tricks, he and I between us. Without d.i.c.k I would be nowhere, and perhaps d.i.c.k would go to the bad without me."
"But what becomes of the c.o.c.katoos?"
"I sell them. That is the secret of our wealth and happiness. They are Australian hard-bill crestless c.o.c.katoos. I pay thirty shillings for each of them. I sell them for ten and even fifteen pounds. There is one there, forty years of age; the most wonderful bird in all the world.
Rothschild is very rich, sir, and so is Vanderbilt, but neither possess money to buy that darling bird. No, nor d.i.c.k either. But here comes the Professor."
The bird came hopping towards me, jumped up, perched on the back of a straw chair, and eyed me curiously for quite a minute, using first one eye, then the other, as if to make quite sure of diagnosing me properly.
I thought him somewhat brusque and peculiar at first. He asked me three questions in rapid succession, but gave me no time to answer: "Who are you? What do ye want? Are you hungry?" The Professor and I, however, soon settle down to steady conversation, and talked on all kinds of topics, as freely as if we had known each other for years. Only, like the dictionary, d.i.c.k was apt to change his subject rather frequently.
I must say, however, that this pretty bird was the cleverest and best talker I have ever known or heard. There positively seemed no end to his vocabulary, and the ridiculously amusing remarks he made would, I believe, have caused a horse to smile.
"In the name of goodness," I was fain to exclaim at last to my host, "is this really a bird, or is it some sprite or fay you have picked up in the depths of this weird forest?"
The old shepherd seemed pleased. He nodded and smiled to d.i.c.k, and the bird waxed more boisterous and funny than ever.
"I begin to think," I said, "that I have got into some house of enchantment, and that nothing around me is real."
The shepherd put Professor d.i.c.k to bed at last, and conducted me safely over the moor. He promised to call for us next day, and take us back to the cottage in the forest to hear the Professor teaching his cla.s.s.
There had been anxious hearts in the caravan during my absence, but Bob went bounding away in front of me to announce my arrival.
Frank was dressed and ready to go off to seek me, stick in hand and plaid across his manly shoulders. But all is well that ends well.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
THE OLD MAN"S DOGS.
"But there was silence one bright golden day, Through my own pine-hung mountains."
The sun shone very brightly next morning; the sky was blue; and a silence, broken only by the constant roar of the torrent, brooded over the bills.
We all went to see, or rather _seek_, for Professor d.i.c.k"s Academy.
But for a long time all in vain, and I was beginning to think the events of last evening must all have taken place in dreamland, when, emerging from the trees, the stalwart form of the old shepherd himself was observed coming towards us. In a few minutes more we were in the cottage.
And there, sure enough was d.i.c.k hard at work teaching his cla.s.s. _He_ was loose, his pupils all caged. We were warned to keep silence, and did so as long as we could.
d.i.c.k repeated words and sentences over and over again, and some of the pupils were most attentive and apt. And the way some of the more earnest stretched down their necks, c.o.c.ked their heads and listened, was amusing in the extreme.
But there was one bad boy in the cla.s.s--a saucy-looking c.o.c.katoo, with a red garland round his neck.
"I want a bit o" sugar," was all he would say, and he kept on at it. "A bit o" sugar, a bit o" sugar; I want a bit o" sugar."
The Professor went towards the delinquent"s cage, as if to reason with him; but the naughty bird laughed derisively, and finished off by making a grab at d.i.c.k through the bars.
The old man at once threw a black cover over the cage, upon which the bird"s tune was changed, and in the dark he seemed to bitterly bemoan his fate, repeating in a most lugubrious voice the words--"Poor Polly!
Poor _dear_ little Polly."
One of us laughed.
The spell was broken, and the Professor would teach no more.
"My birds will have a half-holiday," said the old shepherd, laughing.
He came with us to the caravans, and greatly delighted he was. We gave him books and magazines, and that same morning shifted camp farther east, promising, if ever we came that road again, to visit the shepherd and Professor d.i.c.k"s Academy.
The story of the evening was--
THE OLD MAN"S DOGS.
"I would not enter on my list of friends (Though graced with polished manners and fine sense, Yet wanting sensibility) the man Who needlessly sets foot upon a worm."
When a boy at school, of all my favourite authors, Bulwer Lytton was _facile princeps_. Walter Scott fascinated, and Cooper enthralled me, while the "Arabian Nights" held me spell-bound; but there was a charm to me about all the writings of the first-mentioned novelist and poet that nothing else could equal.