The Pond

CHAPTER XI

The Worst Day of

The summer was drawing to an end.

The beeches were quite yellow with the heat; and the pond was overgrown with plants almost right up to the middle. All the tadpoles had turned into frogs; all the young animals were growing and wanted more food. The water-lily and the spear-wort had stopped quarrelling, for they had nothing more to quarrel about. Both of them had lost their white blossoms and their heads were full of seeds.

The reed-warblers' children were now so big that they had begun to leave the nest and flutter about in the weeds. But they were not quite sure of themselves and still dangled after their parents. They never went so far away but that they could easily return to the nest; and they lay in it every evening and fought for room and bit and kicked one another, while their half-starved parents sat beside them and hushed them.

"Oh, mummy … do get me that fly!" said one.

"I can't catch these horrid midges," said the second.

"Boo-hoo!.. Boo-hoo!.. The dragon-fly flew away from me!" said the third.

"I daren't take hold of the daddy-long-legs," said the fourth.

But the fifth said nothing, for he was a poor little beggar, who always hung his beak.

"We'll never make a proper reed-warbler of him," said the father.

And, when they were being drilled in flying and hopping and scrambling in the reeds, or examined in singing, the fifth was always behind the rest.

"We shall never be able to drag him with us to Italy," said the reed-warbler.

And little Mrs. Reed-Warbler sighed.

In the water below, the duck splashed about with her grown-up ducklings.

"The end is near," she said. "I am sure of it. I have a horrid presentiment all over my body."

"What harm can happen to you?" asked Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "You don't travel, so you're not exposed to as many dangers as the rest of us."

"One can never tell," said the duck. "I feel it in my back."

Then she paddled on and quacked to her children with her anxious old voice and wore a distressful look in her eyes.

One day something happened that set the whole pond in commotion.

The pike was suddenly hauled up out of the water.

The reed-warbler saw it himself. The pike hung and sprawled terribly at the end of a thin line, flew through the air in a great curve and fell down on the grass. At the other end of the line was a rod, and at the other end of the rod a boy, who was crimson in the face with delight at the big fish he had caught.

"It serves him right, the highwayman!" said the perch.

"Thank goodness, he's gone!" croaked the frogs.

And all the little roach and carp danced round the water with delight.

"He had not many friends," said the reed-warbler.

"He had not one," said the perch. "He was the worst robber in the pond."

"He never did anything to me," said the water-lily. "He was a brave and distinguished gentleman, who hadn't his equal among the lot of you. It was always a real pleasure to me when he came sweeping past my stalks."

"Well, I have seen many go sweeping down his throat," said the eel. "And they did not think that so amusing. But he did just what I should have done in his place! Now that he's gone, I suppose I'm the biggest in the pond."

He stretched himself to his full length.

"You have grown big and stout," said the reed-warbler.

"I have had a good year," said the eel. "But I shall soon be going to sea now and working off my fat."

On the evening of the same day a man stood at the edge of the pond, just where the reed-warblers lived. He wore high boots with wooden soles and whetted a scythe till the sound of it whizzed through the air.

"What's going to happen now?" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

"Quack! Quack!" cried the duck in terror.

But the man spat on his hands and took hold of the scythe. Then he walked out into the water and began to cut down the reeds, close in, at the edge, and right out, as far as they grew. They fell into the water, with a soft sigh; and then, when he had finished, he stood on the bank and contemplated his work.

"That was a fine clearing," he said. "Duck-hunting begins to-morrow."

Then he went a bit farther with his scythe and made another clearing.

But he had caused terrible misfortunes. He had torn the water-spider's nest and crushed the spider herself. He had broken the bladder-wort at the root with his heavy wooden boots. And the reed-warblers' nest lay overturned among the cut reeds.

The reed-warblers flew round the nest with loud screams:

"The children! The children!" they cried.

The children had saved themselves. Four had fluttered on land and sat there and looked thoroughly bewildered. The fifth was half-buried under the reeds and could not get out.

The two old ones with difficulty brought it in to the others:

"Oh dear! oh dear!" said little Mrs. Reed-Warbler, in despair. "What are we to do now?"

"It might have been worse," replied her husband. "Suppose it had happened a month ago! Now the youngsters are able to look after themselves, all except that one there."

"Oh, it was a terrible place to come to!" said she. "It was a great shame of you to drag me here. I would much rather have remained in Italy, even if I had never got married."

"Don't talk nonsense, wife," said he. "You wanted to come here just as much as I did. This is where we were born and where our home is and where we had to build our nest. We can't help it; it's in our blood. Besides, we have had a very good time, and have shared each other's joys and sorrows. Don't let us squabble now in our old age, but rather see that we get the children's travelling-suits ready and then be off."

Then she became sensible and they sat late into the night and talked about it. The youngsters ran round in the grass and ate ants and thought the whole thing great fun, for children know no better. Only the fifth one hung about disconsolately.

"What are we to do with the poor little wretch?" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler, pushing a mouthful to him.

"We shall never get him to Italy alive," said her husband.

Quite early next morning there was a tremendous uproar round the pond.

Men shouted and dogs barked. They put out the boat and rowed her with difficulty through the thick weeds. The woman of the pond stood outside her cottage, curtseying and pouring out tea.

"Whatever is this?" asked the reed-warbler.

"It's the world coming to an end," said the duck. "Quack! Quack! Quack!"

"To the bottom! To the bottom!" said the eel. "Wriggle and twist!"

The terrified reed-warbler family pressed close together in the grass. But then the two old ones grew inquisitive and could not keep still. They warned the youngsters to stay quiet, whatever happened, and sat down, a little way from each other, on the tops of the reeds beside the clearing.

"Bang! Bang!" went the guns over the pond. "Bang! Bang! Bang!"

And there were lots of ducks quacking and lots of small birds who flew out of their hiding-places in terror. Great ugly dogs, with their tongues hanging out of their mouths, swam round and barked. The leaves of the water-lily dived right under the water and the spear-wort disappeared entirely and never came back again.

"Bang! Bang! Bang!"

"There lies our duck," said the reed-warbler.

And there she lay on her back, dead, only waiting for the dogs to come and fetch her.

"Bang! Bang!"

"I must get away, I can stand it no longer," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "Let us fly back to the children."

She received no answer and, when she looked round, her husband was gone.

She stared at the reed on which he had been sitting and up in the air and down at the water. Then she gave a frightful scream:

"Oh, poor forlorn widow that I am! What shall I do? What shall I do?"

He lay in the water, hit by a stray shot, dead, stiff.

"Children! Children! Your father is dead!"

The four looked at her in dismay, when she brought the news; the fifth stared vacantly and stupidly, as usual. The uproar continued, out in the pond. The six reed-warblers sat in a row on the edge and were at their wits' end what to do.

Then, gradually, it became quiet again.

The smoke of the powder lifted and the water calmed down. The men with the guns sat up above in the wood and ate their lunch; and the woman of the pond counted the money she had made.

"That was a terrible business," said the water-lily.

"My husband is dead," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler and sang a dirge that would have moved a stone.

"My respectful condolences, madam," said the eel and came up out of the mud. "But will you admit that I was right? Think how much care and sorrow one escapes by keeping out of all this domesticity. I don't know my wife, as I once had the honour of telling you; I have never seen her. It wouldn't occur to me to shed a tear if anyone told me that she was dead."

"You horrid, heartless person!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "To talk like that to a widow with five children, all unprovided for, and one of them a cripple too!"

"Oh, those women!" said the eel and disappeared.

That evening, little Mrs. Reed-Warbler sat and thought things over.

"We must go," she said, "this very night. There's nothing else for us to do. If we fly and hop as well as we can and work hard and behave sensibly, we shall be all right."

"I can't keep up with you," said the crippled child.

"I was forgetting you," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler.

She looked at the poor child for a while. Then she shook her wings and took a quick resolve:

"No, you can't keep up with us," she said. "And we can't stay here and be ruined for your sake. If I leave you behind, you'll be eaten by a fox or a cat or those greedy ants. It would be a pity for you to be tortured, you poor little fellow. It's better that I should kill you myself and have done with it."

Then and there, she rushed at the youngster and pecked away at his head until he was dead:

"Now let's be off!" she said.

"Madam," said the eel, "you must not go without allowing me to say good-bye to you. You are a charming woman and you know how to adapt yourself to circumstances. You were incensed at the horrid robbers in the pond; and you yourself ate innocent flies from morning till night. You loved poetry; but you ate the poor May-fly, though you promised her that she should be allowed to live her poetic life for an hour. You were furious with the spider who ate her mother, and with the cray-fish, who ate her children; and now, of your own accord you have pecked your sick child to death, so that you may go to Italy."

"Thank goodness, I sha'n't see you any more, you detestable, spiteful fellow!" said Mrs. Reed-Warbler. "But I may as well tell you that I killed my child for pity."

"And the spider ate her mother from hunger and the cray-fish her children from love," said the eel. "And I let mine shift for themselves from common sense!"

"My dears," said Mrs. Reed-Warbler, "that eel was positively created to live in this horrible pond!"

Then they flew away.

"I don't think I shall stay here, for all that," said the eel. "I am longing for the sea."

He looked round warily, then crept up into the grass and wriggled and twisted quickly to the nearest ditch.

CHAPTER XII

The End

November came and was no different from what it usually is.

The trees stood with bare branches. The leaves rustled over the earth or floated on the pond. The reeds were all cut down; the water-lily's leaves withered away, with stalks and all, while she, deep down at the bottom, slept her winter sleep and dreamt of her next white spring costume.

And down at the bottom lay all the frogs, buried deep in the mud, so that only their noses stuck out. It looked as though the pond were paved with frogs' noses. The plants in the water were as leafless as the plants on land. Hidden among the stalks and withered leaves, under the stones and in the mud lay animals sleeping, or eggs waiting for the spring to come and hatch them.

All the birds had flown, except the chaffinch and a few others, who hopped about and managed as best they could. The flies were all gone and the dragon-flies and spiders and midges and butterflies and all the rest. There were only a few grumpy fish left in the pond.

And the storm raged among the trees, till they cracked and creaked, and whipped the pond up into tall waves with foam on their crests.

"It is really horrid here in winter," said the woman of the pond, as she stuffed her windows with moss. "Such a howling in the chimney and a creaking and cracking in the wood and a roaring and rushing in the pond! I wish we had the glorious summer again. That is a happy time and peaceful time. Then it's pleasant living by the pond."

A poet, accompanied by seven ladies, walked on the path around the pond.

He wore a fur-lined coat and turned the collar over his ears; and the ladies were wrapped up so that nothing showed but the tips of their noses. For it was very cold.

"Ladies," said the poet, "when you look at that wild unsightly pond now, you have simply no idea how charming it can be in summer. Now, all these elements have been let loose. Waves rage against waves, the storm rushes round and the trees stand naked and disconsolate. It is a real picture of strife and sorrow and cruelty. But, ladies, come out here on a summer's day and you shall see a different sight. Then the reeds grow along the banks in all their elegance; water-lily and spear-wort float side by side upon the surface of the water and nod smilingly to each other with their white flowers. The midges hover in the air and the frogs croak and glad birds sing. Deep in the water swim beautiful fish disporting themselves gaily. The mussels in the mud dream of beautiful pearls, the cray-fish crawl slowly round and round and enjoy life and happiness. Ladies, you simply cannot imagine what a picture of peace and happiness the pond offers. It is, as it were, an abstract of all the wonderful harmonies of Nature, the sight of which consoles us poor mortals, who strive and wrangle from morn till dewy eve and envy and slander and persecute one another. Remember, ladies, to come out to the pond when summer is here. It braces a mortal for his bitter fight to see the peace and gladness in which God's lower creatures live … those of His creatures which have not received our great intellectual gifts, but a purer and deeper happiness instead."

Thus spake the poet. And seven ladies listened respectfully to his words … and nobody laid violent hands upon him.