He knew it was of no use speaking of it to the quiet flowers; so he went down as quickly as he could to the beach to consult his friends there.
They could none of them help him. The crabs took no interest at all in the subject, and the limpets and mussels evidently thought it a very wild idea. The whelks entered a little more into it; and he could not help hoping he might fall in with another medusa. But at length, after many fruitless inquiries, the Child seated himself, rather despondingly, on his old station by the rock-pool.
There his eyes lighted on a stone covered with a number of delicate little cups, like alabaster vases, each fastened to the rock by its stem. He was beginning to move one when a small whelk sh.e.l.l near made a slight rattling on the rocks, and two little horns, with two black eyes at their roots, peeped out to see what was the matter.
"Take care," said the whelk, "you are disturbing my nursery."
Then the Child saw that each of the white vases was a little egg-cup carefully fastened to the rock, and he begged the whelk"s pardon.
"Do you go out to sea?" he asked.
"Some of my relations do," replied the whelk; "and I myself have occasionally floated among the great waves; but it is rather dangerous."
"I would not mind the danger," said the Child, "if you would teach me how."
The whelk had no idea how to teach any one, so the subject dropped.
In a few minutes, as the Child was gazing idly over the rocks, he observed on the top of one of them a number of little sh.e.l.ls opening and shutting under the shallow water, whilst through the openings little feathery heads kept darting in and out.
"Are you limpets?" he asked.
"No connection," was the reply.
"Oh, I thought you were limpet sh.e.l.ls broken and mended," said the Child. "Are you related to the builders of the sand-bridges?"
"Not at all," answered the feathery heads. "We are Bala.n.u.ses. In our youth we were great voyagers, and floated about on the waves. But now we have grown wiser. We have thrown off our legs and eyes, and built ourselves these little chambers with folding-doors, and are settled down respectably for life."
The Child could scarcely help laughing at the idea of any one finding it a comfort to throw away his legs and eyes; but he thought it would not be respectful towards elderly gentlemen, who had seen so much of the world, so he said, as gravely as he could, "Was it not pleasant dancing about among the great waves?"
"Very well for young people," was the answer, "or for those who cannot provide for themselves otherwise; but to have a drawing-room with folding-doors, and stay at home when it is dry, or feel about when it is wet, just as one likes, is quite a different thing."
And the little heads swayed about so happily, making tiny whirlpools to suck in their food, that the Child had no doubt they were as happy as they could be, and wisely resolved to be the same.
So the thin cloud of discontent was blown away, though not the desire to see the far-off wonders; and as he sat and watched in happy silence, the soft music of the living creatures again broke on his ear. And as he looked and listened, new wonders burst on him, new doors of beauty kept springing open in the fairy palace of the rock-pool. Hairy stems of the large brown sea-weeds blossomed, as he looked, into a thousand little living stars, vibrating their sensitive rays to and fro in the crystal water. The scales which spotted them proved to be a honeycomb of countless cells, every one of which had its little living busy tenant; and a tiny withered-looking stalk, with k.n.o.bs at the end of the branches, suddenly shot out from each little k.n.o.b numbers of busy little fingers, feeling in all directions for food,--whilst through all flowed the sweet solemn song, so that the Child lingered in happy wonder until the little creeks grew invisible in the shade and the water plashed with a cold sound. The little rock-borers kindled their bluish-white lamps, in the depths of their tiny caves, to light him home; and when he reached the mossy bank, the glow-worms were awaiting him with their rows of coloured lamps, illuminating the mossy bank as for a festival; and the rock-pools shone like steel mirrors, with a cold gray light, among the dark rocks. Then he returned to his cave.
But still the longing grew within him to learn the words of the Song, and he thought, "I wonder if they could teach it me far out on the deep sea?"
His friends and playfellows on the sh.o.r.e saw his thoughtful looks, for they all looked to him and loved him as their joy and crown, their darling and their little King; and they often consulted together how they could give him his wish.
CHAPTER V.
One calm bright morning, when the Child had been busy rendering services to many of his sea friends, who had lost their way or had been roughly treated by the waves, he came to rest himself by the rock-pool. There a great surprise and delight awaited him. A large volute, nearly related to some of his friends the whelks, had entangled his sh.e.l.l among some long fronds of floating sea-weed: with him were swimming two creatures, very beautiful, but strangers to the Child, and the whole formed a little fairy raft, ready to take him out to the deep sea!
He understood it at once; his face flushed crimson with pleasure and grat.i.tude, and for a moment his voice was choked so that he could not speak, for he thought, "Now I shall learn the words of the Song."
Then he clapped his hands and laughed aloud for joy, and thanked all the creatures, and seated himself on the sea-weed, buoyed up by its air-bladders, with one hand clasped round the volute, and the other laid on the strange spiral sh.e.l.l.
Thousands of the sand-borers of the sabella family thrust out their feathered heads to see him start, the hairy crab and many of his brothers glared after him with their eager eyes, and even the rock-borers--the hard-working pholases--crept out to the mouth of their dens to watch him.
"I shall soon come back to you," said the Child; "and then we will sing the Song together."
So the sh.e.l.l-fish plied their oars, and the other transparent creature spread its sail, and they and the Child floated away together.
The Child wished to know something of his new companions before he lost sight of all his old friends, so he politely asked them who they were.
One of them had a crystal body spotted with dark blue, from which many little fingers shot down into the water and played about like oars, whilst above rose a lovely little transparent sail, catching the breeze.
"Are you a medusa?" asked the Child.
"That is my family name," said the little boatman; "my own name is Velella."
"And you?" said the Child, turning to the other stranger, whose head came far out of his sculptured spiral sh.e.l.l, whilst a hundred delicate feelers played around it in the waves, "I never saw any one like you before."
"I am a nautilus," said the beautiful stranger. "Our family is one of the oldest in the world. We are nearly the last of our race. The days of our glory are well-nigh over, and we sail about here and there, a feeble and dwarfish race, where our ancestors reigned supreme and unrivalled."
The Child wondered at these words, and could scarcely make out their meaning; he had not dreamt about any world but the one he lived in, or any days before those which rose and set on him; all around him seemed so infinite and inexhaustible. And now the stranger, beautiful creature!
spoke to him from the entrance of a dim and wonderful world, of which he knew nothing. So the Child sat silent, with endless wonder in his earnest blue eyes, and looked for the first time on the vision of the Past.
Then the Nautilus went on:--
"There was, they say, a time, before the mountains were uncovered, or one of the trees you know had blossomed, when there was nothing more beautiful or wiser than we in the world; and we dived into the sea caves, and floated about in the boundless waste of waters beneath the sun, and the moon, and the stars. Some of our race, who lived and reigned then, have perished for ever, and their burial-places form the foundation of your earth. If you wander inland among the hills, it is said, you find everywhere the tombs of our ancestors carved in imperishable stone."
"Are you unhappy," asked the Child, "since your family are so fallen?"
"I have lost nothing," said the nautilus. "We have all of us our cup of life filled to the brim with happiness."
"Who fills it?" said the Child with a look of awe.
"We do not know," said the nautilus; "but it is always full."
The Child pressed his hand on his eyebrows,--it seemed too great and difficult for him to understand; and then the thought crossed him that the nautilus might have learned the words of the Song from his ancestors who lived so very long ago, and he sat still and listened.
So they floated out of sight of land into the deep sea, and, mingled with the quiet plash of the waves, came from around and beneath the old sweet solemn Song. But it was always without words.
It was delightful to float about thus over the deep sea,--to be rocked up and down on the great waves. There were no breakers, no foam--only the constant heaving and rocking of the blue waves, with their emerald lights and purple shadows. And the Child shut his eyes and listened, with one hand round a horn of the volute sh.e.l.l, and the other laid on the Nautilus, whilst the Velella unfurled her sail before them in the sunshine; and he thought his dream had come true.
When he looked around again, numbers of strange and beautiful creatures were floating around him, just below the surface of the water. Among them was a large crystal umbrella fringed with delicate fringes, with a quatre-foil of crimson in the centre, and numbers of small feelers flashing to and fro in the clear sea underneath.
"Do you not know me?" it said. "I am the medusa you saved when wrecked on your sh.o.r.e; and these are some of my relations gathered to welcome you amongst us." And as she spoke, the little fleet formed in order around him to do him honour; and they sang, "Stay with us, and be our little King!"
Some spread their fairy transparent canopies, and shook all their delicate fringes for joy; some flashed about little streamers--golden, and rose, and opal-green--like flags on a festival; some spread sunny sails, like the Velella; some tiny crystal globes darted in and out among the rest, near the surface; and farther down in the clear water, as far as the child"s eyes could penetrate, the same living crystal globes, and canopies, and balloons, flashed to and fro.
One little creature, however, delighted the Child beyond all the rest.
It was a tiny crystal globe, not larger than a hazel-nut, divided by eight exquisite ribs. Each rib was formed of countless crystal plates like the plates of a paddle-wheel, and each tiny plate was incessantly vibrating up and down, carrying the restless little creature hither and thither as it pleased, and making it flash with their ceaseless movement like a balloon of sunbeams; while from underneath shot two delicate threads fringed with many branching fibres, which were for ever curving and waving about.
"What is your name?" asked the Child. "Why are you never still?"
"I am the Beroe," said the little balloon; "and those threads are my fishing lines."