JACKANAPES
DADDY DARWIN'S DOVECOT
AND OTHER STORIES
By
JULIANA HORATIO EWING.
with
Illustrations
By
Randolph
Caldecott
"If I might buffet for my love, or bound my horse for her
favors, I could lay on like a butcher, and sit like a
Jackanapes, never off!"
KING HENRY V, Act 5, Scene 2.
JACKANAPES
CHAPTER I.
Last noon beheld them full of lusty life,
Last eve in Beauty's circle proudly gay,
The midnight brought the signal sound of strife,
The morn the marshalling in arms--the day
Battle's magnificently stern array!
The thunder clouds close o'er it, which when rent
The earth is covered thick with other clay,
Which her own clay shall cover, heaped and pent,
Rider and horse:--friend, foe,--in one red burial blent.
Their praise is hymn'd by loftier harps than mine:
Yet one would I select from that proud throng.
----to thee, to thousands, of whom each
And one as all a ghastly gap did make
In his own kind and kindred, whom to teach
Forgetfuluess were mercy for their sake;
The Archangel's trump, not glory's, must awake
Those whom they thirst for.
--BYRON.
Two Donkeys and the Geese lived on the Green, and all other residents ofany social standing lived in houses round it. The houses had no names.Everybody's address was, "The Green," but the Postman and the people ofthe place knew where each family lived. As to the rest of the world,what has one to do with the rest of the world, when he is safe at homeon his own Goose Green? Moreover, if a stranger did come on any lawfulbusiness, he might ask his way at the shop.
Most of the inhabitants were long-lived, early deaths (like that of thelittle Miss Jessamine) being exceptional; and most of the old peoplewere proud of their age, especially the sexton, who would be ninety-ninecome Martinmas, and whose father remembered a man who had carriedarrows, as a boy, for the battle of Flodden Field. The Grey Goose andthe big Miss Jessamine were the only elderly persons who kept their agessecret. Indeed, Miss Jessamine never mentioned any one's age, orrecalled the exact year in which anything had happened. She said thatshe had been taught that it was bad manners to do so "in a mixedassembly."
The Grey Goose also avoided dates, but this was partly because herbrain, though intelligent, was not mathematical, and computation wasbeyond her. She never got farther than "last Michaelmas," "theMichaelmas before that," and "the Michaelmas before the Michaelmasbefore that." After this her head, which was small, became confused, andshe said, "Ga, ga!" and changed the subject.
But she remembered the little Miss Jessamine, the Miss Jessamine withthe "conspicuous" hair. Her aunt, the big Miss Jessamine, said it washer only fault. The hair was clean, was abundant, was glossy, but dowhat you would with it, it never looked like other people's. And atchurch, after Saturday night's wash, it shone like the best brass fenderafter a S