Wild Life in the Land of the Giants: A Tale of Two Brothers

“Your name,” said my brother, “shall be boiled down to plain Jack.”

“Well, Master Rupert Domville Ffoljambe-Foley Jillard Jones,” I replied, “if I’m to be boiled down to Jack, you shall be boiled down to Jill.”

“Oh, I don’t mind a bit. It’s short. But – a – isn’t Jill an old lady’s name?”

“Well, I rather think it is, because Jack and Jill went up the hill, you know, and I’ve seen pictures of them, and one was an old lady. But that doesn’t matter, does it?”

“No, Jack.”

“Silly thing, though, to go up a hill to fetch a pail of water. Was the well on top of the hill, I wonder?”

“I couldn’t say. But, Jack?”

“Yes, Jill.”

“Suppose we play at Jack and Jill to-morrow, just to inoculate our names, you know.”

“Inaugurate, you mean, you silly old Jill.”

“Well, it’s much the same. Won’t it be fun?”

“Yes, and I’ll do it. Let’s fall asleep, and maybe dream about it.”

“Let’s make some metre first.” This was a favourite pastime of ours – and we always did have some fun of some kind before we fell asleep. Our “poetry,” as we called it, certainly was not of much account; but the play was this: whatever two or three words one of us said, the other had to match in metre. To-night it ran as follows – I put our names before our lines: —

Jack. “Our Auntie Prim,”
Jill. “She’s got so slim,”
Jack. “And her eyes are so dim,”
Jill. “That I’ll wager a limb”
Jack. “She can’t see over her spectacle rim.”

“Bravo! Jack,” cried Jill, “that’s famous.”

Then we had a chorus of laughing. But it was checked as completely and suddenly as if that traditional pail of water had come souse on both our heads, for auntie’s voice rang up the stair —

“Reginald and Rupert, I am listening.”

We covered our heads with the bedclothes, and were as mute as mice, till the sunshine streamed in at the window next morning, and Sally knocked with our drop of hot water.

But immediately after school hours we went off with a rush and a run to the stable, where we found Robert washing Aunt Serapheema’s pony’s white feet.

“Robert, we want a pail of water.”

“Whatever be ye goin’ to do wi’ th’ pail o’ water, lads?”

“Oh, we’ll soon tell you,” cried I: “I’m Jack, and he’s Jill now, and we’re going to play at it real. We’re going to roll down the green mount same’s we often do, you know, only we must have a pail of water.”

“Well, well, well,” said Robert, “I never! But sha’n’t Oi carry it up for thee?”

“No, no, that wouldn’t leave us half the fun.”

The green mount, as it was called, was a grassy hill near the sea, on which we used to have no end of fun in summer. It was pretty steep, and right in view of the dining-room window.

At this window our darling mother, as we always called her, and Aunt Serapheema were sitting talking quietly, while Sally laid the cloth, and they were not a little astonished to see us boys lugging painfully up the hill with a pail of water. Of course the real Jack and Jill had gone to fetch water, but we could only carry our programme out in the way we were doing.

Both mamma and auntie watched us with no little curiosity; while Sally, near by, stood looking too.

“Are you ready now?” said Jill, when we were near the top, “because you’ve got to tumble first, you know.”

“I’m ready,” I cried.

Down I toppled.

Over went the bucket, and over went Jill.

“Sakes-a-mussy!” shrieked Sally. “Sakes-a-mussy! missus, they’re all tumbling down together.”

Mother cried, “Oh! the dear boys.”

Aunt lifted her eyes and mittened palms cloudwards.

But for all that, down we rolled in fine form, —

Jill over Jack,
The bucket over Jill,
Right to the bottom
Of the big green hill.

That is how we metred it, that evening after the row was all over, and we were sent to bed.

But it would have defied all the art of metre to describe the plight we were in when Robert and Sally picked us up, and led us at arm’s length into the kitchen. For I was soused from head to foot, and Jill had got it second hand, and as for mud and rents – the least said the soonest mended.

We didn’t play any more at Jack and Jill with real water.

Chapter Two

While Walking on the Sea-Beach

Everybody loved auntie, for with all her strictness, and – to our young eyes her strange old-world ways, she was so good and so genuine. Goodness was no penance with auntie; it was not put on and off like a dress-coat, a silk hat, or a sealskin jacket; it was part and parcel of her very nature. I believe that if auntie ever cloaked her real soul’s self at all, it was when she was apparently exceedingly wroth with us, after some of our little escapades; which we could no more help than a bird can help flying. But sitting there in that weird black chair, lecturing Jill and me with uplifted forefinger, and steadfast glances over, not through, the two pairs of glasses, she certainly did look thrillingly stern. And she had a way, too, of making us feel thoroughly ashamed of ourselves, without saying much or without scolding.

So our love was mingled with a good deal of reverence. Really I laugh now when I think of it, but whether you can understand the feeling or not, we – that is Jill and I – almost revered the chair in which auntie sat, even when she wasn’t sitting in it. You see we were allowed to play and dance and jump in the schoolroom on wet days, or when the wind blew high from the south and west, and dashed the sea’s spray over beach and gardens. And do what we might, we never could disabuse our minds of the notion that the chair was a living thing, and took notes of all we said and did, and would whisper things to auntie when she sat down again.

At ordinary times, when we might be merely squatting together on a goatskin rug, reading “Robinson Crusoe,” or turning over the leaves of a huge “Arabian Nights” to look at the pictures, it did not matter much. But always when I proposed a game at anything very ridiculous – and it was always I who did make the proposition – before we began, I would say —

“Wait half a minute, Jill, let’s play at the chair being naughty first.”

This was only an excuse, of course, to have the chair turned round with its back to us.