I
THE MAGPIE
ONE of the most consequential personages about the Silverstream Manse was A.D. I remember very clearly the morning on which we met for the first time. It was a Monday. ‘It’s your turn to come over to Silverstream on Monday,’ John Broadbanks had said. ‘You needn’t trouble to yoke up; I shall have to drive into Mosgiel first thing that morning; I’ll pick you up outside John Havelock’s store at ten o’clock. That do?’
It did perfectly. Shortly after ten we were jogging along the quiet road that led to .Silverstream. The hawthorn hedges were so full of blossom that, in the distance, they looked like snowdrifts; the perfume was delicious. Rabbits scurried hither and thither ; but ·always vanished into the long grass under the hedge long before Gyp, who was barking furiously in his excitement, could get anywhere near them. All at once I became aware that there was something alive in the box at my feet.
‘Oh,’ John laughed, ‘it’s only A.D. We had lost him for the last few days and couldn’t think what had become of him. I found him just now down by Craig’s haystack. Goodness knows how he got so far from the Manse. He seemed glad to come to .me; and I put him in the egg-box for safety till I get him home again.’
A.D., it turned out, was a tame magpie. Don had found him as a mere fledgling lying in a culvert on the road to Maungatua. He had somehow broken · a wing and was fluttering pitifully hither and thither.
‘But why call him A.D.?’ I inquired, ‘he can’t be so very ancient!’ John broke into a peal of laughter.
‘You’re on the wrong tack!’ he cried. ‘In this case A.D. doesn’t stand for Anno Domini; it stands for Artful Dodger. We happened to be reading Oliver Twist on my slipper evenings, when we first discovered A.D.’s weakness; .and the youngsters took the nickname out of the book and gave it to the bird. He certainly deserves it as much as Jack Dawkins did; for he’s quite as clever a thief. We have to keep eyes in the backs of our heads when he’s about. If you miss anything that shines or glitters, you had better look for it first of all in A.D.’s nest in the stable-loft. The chances are that it’s there!
At the dinner table the children were greatly excited over the prodigal’s return. Goldilocks alone lacked enthusiasm.
‘Now we shall have to put everything away again as soon as we’ve finished with it,’ she said with a pout. ‘One day,’ she added, turning to me, ‘I lost my thimble, my button-hole scissors, and I found them all three in A.D.’s nest up at the table. What he wanted them for, I can’t imagine; thimbles and scissors and pencil are of no use to him!’
That is the point! With the genius characteristic of her sex, Goldilocks put her finger on the real crux of the problem. A.D. is a thief; but he is no ordinary thief. He has a mania for collecting articles that he can neither eat nor use nor sell. Jack Dawkins, the Artful Dodger in Mr. Fagin’s kitchen, at least profited by what he stole. His namesake at Silverstream stole without thought of profit, stole disinterestedly, stole for the sheer sake of stealing. He had a passion for collecting, that was all. Which reminds me of an address by Mrs. Ernestine Mills.
Like Mr. Punch, Mrs. Mills has been giving advice to those about to marry. Between Mr. Punch’s advice and that of Mrs. Mills, however, there is all the difference in the world. Mr. Punch’s advice is severely negative: that of Mrs. Mills is essentially positive. Mr. Punch said all that he had to say in one word—Don’t! Mrs. Mills speaks at some length. There is no record of a case in which Mr. Punch’s advice was accepted. Mrs. Mills has a much better chance of success. In talking to her brides-to-be, Mrs. Ernestine Mills deals particularly with the planning of the future home. The interesting gathering was held at the University College London, and Lady Emmoth occupied the chair. Mrs. Mills lays the entire emphasis of her address on an appeal for simplicity and economy. She feels that it will be a thousand pities if the brides of to-day and to-morrow consider themselves under some sort of obligation to proceed upon the lines laid down by the brides of yesterday and of the day before. It is all very well for thrushes, starlings, and linnets to build their pretty nests to-day just as the thrushes, starlings, and linnets of a century ago built theirs; but humanity-and especially feminine humanity—is capable of greater intelligence, greater originality, greater facility of adaptation. Mrs. Mills would like to lead a revolt against superfluous mats, curtains, knick-knacks, gim-cracks, and all varieties of gee-gaws. ‘Beware of the magpie habit!’ she exclaims; and, as soon as the exclamation fell upon my ears, my mind flew back to A.D. and his tiresome depredations at Silverstream.
‘Beware of the magpie habit!’ cries Mrs. Ernestine Mills. We have a way of collecting things for the mere sake of collecting things. We add to our furniture and equipment, not because the addition is justified by necessity, or even by beauty, but out of sheer acquisitiveness. Mrs. Mills instances a number of articles, as ugly as they are useless, that she has seen in various sitting~rooms and drawing-rooms, and appeals to the brides-to-be to set their fair faces sternly against all such abominations.
Mrs. Mills is talking, be it noted, to young ladies who have every prospect of being brides. George Eliot said something of the same kind long ago, but she was speaking of two excellent ladies to whom, strangely enough, wedded bliss had been denied. George Eliot is mystified, or she pretends to be, at the failure of Miss Mary Linnet and Miss Rebecca Linnet to attract husbands worthy of their exceptional qualities. The home of these immaculate ladies was one dense jungle of spillcases, fire-screens, wax-flowers, and the like. Yet, mystery of mysteries, none of the gentlemen at Milby seemed to want either Miss Mary or Miss Rebecca! George Eliot is bewildered at their blindness. ‘When,’ she says, ‘a man is happy enough to win the affections of a sweet girl who can soothe his cares with crochet, and respond to all his most cherished ideas with beaded urn-rugs and chair-covers in German wool, he has, at least, a guarantee of domestic comfort, whatever trials may await him out of doors. What a resource it is under fatigue and irritation to have your drawing-room well supplied with small mats, which would always be ready if you ever wanted to set anything on them! And what styptic for a bleeding heart can .-equal copious squares of crochet, which are useful for slipping down the moment you touch them?’ One feels very sorry for the excellent Misses Linnet: some people., it really seems, are never appreciated in this world.
Lest, however, I should be giving a false-and most unfortunate-impression, let me hasten to say that it must not for one moment be supposed that the magpie habit is exclusively a feminine one. With the instinctive delicacy of her sex, Mrs. Mills addresses herself less to bridegrooms than to brides; but there is no need to distinguish between the two. Magpies themselves are of both sexes; and the magpie habit characterizes the male as well as the female human. Stop the first boy that you happen to meet in the street, get him, for your entertainment and edification, to turn out his pockets! and you will discover that the creature before you is a young magpie in full feather. When he grows up, he will be just as bad : · the only difference being that the proclivity will take other forms. Without rhyme or reason we allow things to accumulate around us. Glance along a man’s bookshelves, for example, and inquire how the list of the books that he possesses compares with the list of the books that he has actually read. Every library should be periodically and carefully weeded, and the books that are only there because of magpie like acquisitiveness should be sent about their business.
The same is true of money. Unless a man is careful, he will find himself accumulating for the sheer sake of accumulating. Like A.D. at Silverstream, taking to his loft the thimble, the pencil, and the scissors, a man may get into the habit of loading his nest with scrip and deeds and stocks and shares that can never be of any real use to him. Many a man has postponed his retirement too long. He has worked until activity becomes the habit of the years; and leisure, when at last he takes it, becomes a species of unutterable boredom. Had he retired as soon as it became possible for him to do so, his leisure would have been a luxury; but he allowed the magpie habit to get the better of him and it spoiled everything.
Emerson used to say that the mind should every now and again be submitted to a kind of spring cleaning. All rubbish should be thrown out. A man should make up his mind what it is that he desires to remember, and should make it his business to forget everything else. Otherwise the intellect becomes like the drawing-room that Mrs. Mills deplores, crowded and made uncomfortable by a senseless accumulation of trifles.
At a garden party yesterday afternoon I was chatting for some time with Miss Belle Ronaldson. If I liken Miss Ronaldson to a magpie, she must not think me disrespectful. The allusion is neither to her powers of conversation nor to the black and white costume which she happened to be wearing on the lawn yesterday. The analogy is based on quite other grounds. For Miss Ronaldson has an extraordinary facility for picking up every new notion that comes along. In a sense, I admire her. I unfold my paper in the morning and notice, in a languid kind of way, that Professor Brooks-Smyth is announced to deliver a lecture on Modern Religion in the Light of Khantuism. The advertisement ought to interest me. If I were fully alive and wide awake, I should rush for my diary and ascertain whether or not it was possible for me to attend the professor’s lecture. Failing that, I should reach down the encyclopaedia and do my utmost to dispel my abysmal ignorance on the important subject of Khantuism. But, to my shame be it said, I do nothing of the kind. I tum to another page of the paper and forget all about Professor Brooks-Smyth and his Khantuism until, a few days later, I chance to meet Miss Belle Ronaldson. Her enthusiasm is a rebuke to my indifference. She is literally bubbling over with Khantuism. It sparkles in her eye and oozes from her finger-tips. She can talk of nothing else; but, to make up for that deficiency, she can talk of Khantuism as long as you are willing to listen. The only weakness about it is that a fortnight ago she was just as excited about Dr. Jennington-Page’s exposition of The New Phrenosophy. She has now forgotten all about Phrenosophy and is overflowing with Khantuism. If you were to peep into her boudoir, you would see Dr. Jennington-Page’s book tossed away on to a shelf, whilst a text-book of Khantuism lies open on the dressing table. A.D. thought the thimble great fun until he came upon the scissors; and the scissors were the sensation of his life until he found the pencil.
In the day of his need-if such a day came to him the magpie at Silverstream must have found thimbles and scissors. and pencils a poor substitute for the useful stores that he might have hoarded. But he was not alone in his chagrin and discomfiture. Historians tell us that the fleet of Caligula sailed for Britain amidst the plaudits of a people who confidently expected that the proud islanders of the north would at last be brought into subjection to the Roman Empire. Having reached the English coast, however, Caligula wandered up and down the beach collecting pretty pebbles and then—set sail for home! And when the Roman populace crowded the quay to see the landing of his conquered generals and captive kings, he showed them starfish and seaweed and beautiful shells! I often think of that Roman record when I try to visualize the Day of Judgement. What, Whittier asks,
What, my soul, was thy errand here?
Was it mirth or ease ?
Or heaping up dust from year to you ?
Nay, none of these.
If that august day—the day for which all other days were made—discloses the humiliating fact that, instead of living life to some high end, we exhausted all our time and thought and energy in lining our nests with a few bright baubles, we shall feel that we have perpetuated the magpie’s folly on a truly stupendous scale.
-F.W. Boreham
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